Give your Brand the Gift of Consistency

Christmas is a time for traditions old and new, from satsumas in the stocking to Die Hard on the TV. But in the land of advertising Christmas has often been marked by a furious rush for novelty. Never mind that last year’s campaign was brilliant and heartwarming, this year has to be all new!

A decade ago brands - with the noble exception of Coca-Cola and their trucks - would no sooner repeat a Christmas ad than you’d give someone the same pair of socks each year. But in recent years this norm has been slowly shifting, thanks partly to the extraordinary success of Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot campaign, which has been running since 2016 and scoring 5-Star Ratings in System1’s Test Your Ad platform every year since 2019. Kevin has proved that tradition is a Christmas virtue for brands too, and Christmas creative consistency has been one of the big 2020s trends.

It’s not just recurring characters, either - we’re seeing several brands rerun whole creative campaigns this year, from Cadbury’s Secret Santa promotion through Very’s Christmas flamingos to the National Lottery’s touching holiday romance, which is back for a third year. Brands are learning that good creative really can be for life, not just for Christmas.

The trend towards consistency is so striking that this year we devoted a new report, Compound Creativity, to quantifying consistency and exploring how it works and the benefits it delivers for brands. We found that the most creatively consistent brands - measured on 13 different metrics from length of agency relationship to consistency of soundtrack - made the most effective ads. And more importantly, the most consistent brands also drove the most brand and business effects.

Compound Creativity demonstrates that creative consistency pays off in the longer term, with the gap between consistent and inconsistent brands starting to open up after the first year - as you’d expect; it takes time for people to notice consistency! With Christmas advertising, brands should be considering a long-term investment in creative, as the specific festive assets you develop will only turn up once a year.

With that in mind, let’s use the Compound Creativity framework as a lens to look at 2024’s Christmas ads and see which brands have been using consistency well. The report identifies three main areas where consistency matters: Consistent Creative Foundations, a Culture of Creativity, and Consistent Execution. We’ll take a look at each with some recent festive examples.

Consistent Creative Foundations

Compound Creativity starts with laying the foundations - a lasting brand/agency relationship, a consistent positioning and a long-running creative idea. One great example of this is John Lewis, who reinvented the British Christmas ad at the start of the 2010s with their “Thoughtful Gifting” positioning. The ads and stories changed year-on-year but the insight and idea at their heart didn’t, giving a sense of consistency which made the John Lewis ad the most anticipated every year. In 2024 they’re back on form, with “The Gifting Hour” showing that finding a special gift for a special person is still at the heart of the brand: the magical ad scored their highest Star Rating this decade on System1’s Test Your Ad platform.

Another example is Aldi - Kevin’s reign on top of the Christmas charts has been masterminded from the beginning by McCann, whose close relationship with the brand gives them a perfect sense of what works and doesn’t for the much-loved character. It’s a foundation which continues to bring success - this year’s Mission: Impossible themed ad hit the maximum 5.9-Stars yet again.

Culture of Consistency

Compound Creativity doesn’t happen by accident - it requires actual belief and commitment that consistency is the way to superior results. A culture of consistency must be built, as opposed to the culture of novelty which constantly demands new work in the name of “wear out”. Cross-channel consistency, a belief in “wear in” (that ads get stronger over time), re-using assets, and committing to “the show” - making entertaining work with long-term growth in mind - are the four pillars of a culture of consistency.

There’s no better place to start than Coca-Cola if you’re looking for a culture of consistency at Christmas: they have aired the same “Holidays Are Coming” ad almost every year since the mid-'90s, and it scores 5-Stars almost every year too. But wait, you say, didn’t they release an AI-generated version this year? Yes, and because their creative assets are so distinctive and so consistent, not a single person we surveyed about it using Test Your Ad mentioned the AI element. It got a maximum 5.9-Stars from the public, not because of technology but because of consistency.

For cross-channel consistency, you can point to Cadbury’s Secret Santa campaign, which has been running for several years using the same film and out-of-home assets and with a heavy social media component too. Cadbury knew they had a winning idea in secret gifts of chocolate, and have stuck with it to make it lodge in the public imagination. The out-of-home ads in particular score very well on the Test Your Ad Outdoor platform.

Consistent Execution

Finally, the nuts and bolts of Compound Creativity happen at the execution level, where campaigns show their commitment to repeated fluent device and hired device characters, continued use of songs, slogans and sounds, and consistent tone of voice. This is where the upsurge in Christmas consistency is most noticeable on screen, as the same characters show up each year and it turns out audiences really do want to see more of the ones they like.

M&S Food’s Fairy, for instance, first appeared in 2021 alongside the brand’s famous Percy Pig, but the Dawn French voiced character has gone on to become a star in her own right, appearing in every M&S Food Christmas ad since. This year she met Dawn French herself in a series of ads, and the opening one landed another 5.9-Star maximum score. It shows how repeated use of a popular character can make your ad more enjoyable and more effective over time.

If you haven’t got a character of your own, you can also hire one - but it’ll work better the longer its tenure is. Barbour, for instance, have a tradition of using classic British cartoon characters in their ads, and for several years their Christmas ads have starred Aardman Animation’s classic characters like Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit. The fact Barbour doesn’t own the characters is no barrier to them making repeated 5-Star Christmas ads - they always find a convincing role for the product and viewers enjoy the cosy consistency.

Consistency has Won this Christmas

Compound Creativity isn’t a cure-all. As our research finds, if your brand is in decline or defending market share from a rising challenger, it might well be time to refresh your creative and try something new, like John Lewis did way back in 2007 with their first Christmas TV ad. But overall, consistency is a huge benefit for a brand. In 2016, the year of the first Kevin the Carrot ad, no Christmas commercials scored 5-Stars with Test Your Ad. Last year, almost 20 different brands hit that level. The new era of Christmas consistency has been a huge hit with the people who matter most - the audience. Consistency is the best gift your brand can give yourself this year.