You Thought It Was All Him? It Was.
As another year of festivities officially comes to an end, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the ads from this Christmas, before they get bubble wrapped and bundled away with the rest of the decorations and forgotten about for another year.
The idea for this article started with the Boots Christmas ad, arguably one of the biggest of the year, featuring Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh. While I enjoyed the diversity on screen, and the theys and the thems that got the perpetually outraged online mob riled up, my niggle started with the closing line: “You thought it was all him?”. Because the trouble is, it was a him. It was directed by Dave Meyers through RadicalMedia.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s done a great job. But as an ad positioning itself as centring the woman in the narrative, and a woman of colour at that, behind the camera it’s still all about him, him being a white male.
This led me down a rabbit hole (wrong holiday I know) of finding out the other directors behind the biggest ads from this Christmas. Out of the 50 ads I compiled, four were directed by women, and six by partnerships that include women. So out of the 59 directors involved in making these ads (some directed more than one ad but I’ve only accounted for them once), there are 10 women, and only one woman of colour. That’s 17%, or one in six.
2024 was a tough year on many fronts. And with everything going on in the world right now, this might not be the top of anyone’s list. But with the news of big corporate business slashing their DEI departments and budgets including Meta and Amazon, it looks like it will continue to be tough to keep these issues front of mind. Diversity within the directors is also not something that gets scrutinised after the UK Christmas ads in the same way it does after the US Super Bowl. And I was interested to see how we would measure up. (Spoiler alert: it’s pretty much the same. Adage results for 2024’s Super Bowl show three women out of 49 directors, with 39 of those white men (although one of those is blind director, Adam Morse).
So, while women may be getting better diversity on screen, with storylines heavily implying men taking credit for a woman’s work, the same old gatekeepers are still calling the shots behind the scenes. As 2025 Christmas briefs start hitting desks across Adland in the next few months, this year let’s spread some real festive cheer by bringing diversity off-screen too. Only 343 days to make it happen.
*List not exhaustive but taken from Christmas round ups and Thinkbox top 10s.
- Agent Provocateur - Greg Williams (Beast Content, in collaboration with Agent Provocateur creative director Sarah Shotton)
- Airbnb - Andy Lyon (BUCK)
- Aldi - Todd Mueller, Kylie Matulick / Psyop (Stink, by McCann UK)
- Amazon - Wayne McClammy (Hungry Man, in-house)
- Apple - Henry-Alex Rubin (Smuggler, in-house)
- Argos - Michael Gracey (Partizan, by The & Partnership)
- Asda - Brian Buckley (Hungry Man, by Havas London)
- Barbour - Steve Harding-HIll (Aardman)
- BBC - Jay Grace (Aardman Studios, by the BBC)
- BMW - Marc Schölermann (Hochkant, by Jung von Matt)
- Boots - Dave Meyers (Radical, by VML/The Pharm)
- Coca Cola - AI
- Debenhams - Humans (Thom Whitaker and Danielle Outhwaite-Noël) (Riff Raff, by Exposure)
- Disney - Taika Waititi (Hungry Man, by Adam & Eve/DDB)
- Dobbies - Ben Lankester (Form, by Elvis)
- Etsy - Tom Speers (Smuggler, by Orchard Creative)
- Greater Anglia - Ivan Bird (Missing Link Films, by Atomic London)
- Greggs - Si & Ad (Academy Films, by Drummond Central)
- Harvey Nichols - The Berry Boys (Ryan Burnham and Luke Robson) (The Berry)
- Intuit Quickbooks - Tiny Bullet AKA Tina Bull (Arts & Sciences, by FCB London)
- JD Sports - Saman Aminzadeh and Elliott Power (Love Song, by Uncommon Creative Studio)
- John Lewis & Partners - (by Saatchi & Saatchi)
- Part 1 - King She (Radha Ganti and Robert Lopuski) (Smuggler)
- Part 2 - Chris Hewitt (Knucklehead)
- Part 3 - Francois Rousselet (Riff Raff)
- Lego - Alaska (Marco Lafer and Gustavo Moraes) (New-Land, by Our Lego Agency)
- Lidl - Tom Hooper - (BWGTBLD, by BBDO)
- M&S Clothing & Home - Elliot Power (Love Song, by Mother)
- M&S Food - MJ Delaney (Merman, in-house)
- Matalan - Jim Gilchrist (Rattling Stick, by McCann Manchester)
- McDonalds - Nicolai Fuglsig (MJZ, by Leo Burnett)
- Morrisons - Michael Gracey (Partizan, by Leo Burnett)
- National Lottery - Steve Rogers (Biscuit Filmworks, by VCCP)
- Nespresso - Giorgio Bruni (Studio 99)
- O2 - Stefanie Soho (Smuggler, by VCCP)
- Paddy Power - Chris Balmond (Outsider, by BBH London)
- Peta - Andrew Poole (by Atomic London)
- Pepsi Max - Biceps (Victor Aguilar & Egoitz Audikana) (Outsider, by Sips & Bites)
- Sainsbury’s - Sam Brown (Rogue Films, by New Commercial Arts)
- Shelter - Nicholas Goffey and Dominic Hawley (Outsider, by Don’t Panic London)
- Sky - Vince Squibb (Academy Films, by Sky Creative)
- Smyths Toys Superstores - Tim McNaughton (Arts & Sciences, by Droga5 Dublin)
- Sports Direct - Rory Wood (Smuggler, by Frasers)
- Starbucks - Andy and Adeena (Blink Ink, by TBWA|London)
- Tesco - Alaska (Marco Lafer and Gustavo Moraes) (Iconoclast, by BBH London)
- The Entertainer - Juan Cabral (MJZ, by Adam & Eve/DDB)
- Twix - Arnold Jorge, Osagie Samuel, & Frances Draskau (Only Child, by The & Partnership)
- Waitrose & Partners - Part 1 & 2 - Lucy Forbes (Smuggler, by Saatchi & Saatchi)
- World of Tanks - directed by Nez Khammal (100%, by Matter and Energy)
- Vodafone - Tom Speers (Smuggler, by Leo Burnett)
