Twitter Report Examines the Battle of the Christmas Ads

Global brand design agency Conran Design Group [CDG] has partnered with sister Havas agency Socialyse to find out how TV viewers feel about this year’s Christmas ads.

To determine the winner of the 2018 battle for the top ad they analysed 11,000 tweets for each brand’s ad to discover which one is the Christmas cracker, and which one was a right turkey. For this research CDG and Socialyse analysed four emotions – joy, trust, anger and sadness.

"The report says that viewers felt that [Sainsbury's] offered something different to other retailers this year: a heart-warming narrative they could engage with."

The tweets were analysed for tone and emotional content on a scale of -5 to +5, measuring the number of posts (people) and the quality of feeling expressed in the post. By measuring the emotions and understanding the themes driving them, the report provides insight on the customer experience.

Sainsbury's big win

The researchers developed a ‘sentiment score’ to produce a ranking and using that scale found the winner to be Sainsbury’s The Big Night when it came to emotional engagement (scoring 4).

Above: Sainsbury's The Big Night won the tweeters' hearts and minds.

Of all the retailers analysed it had the most positive reactions, tapping into the public’s sense of Christmas spirit, telling a story and focusing on children’s faces capturing the wonder of the season.

The Sainsbury’s ad was a real discussion point on Twitter post-launch, sparking many ‘plug’ memes on the channel. Viewers really responded, using words like ‘love’ to describe their feelings about the ad. The report says that viewers felt that the brand offered something different to other retailers this year: a heart-warming narrative they could engage with. The report goes on to say that the ad connected with a female demographic over male, with 87% of tweets from women.

"Ultimately [John Lewis] failed to engage people and they took to Twitter to discuss their disappointment."

Above: Sainsbury's 'plug' meme.

Waitrose wins out over JL

Humour was a winning approach this year, with Waitrose’s Too Good to Wait spot ranking second (scoring 3.5). One ad in particular, which pokes fun at its partner John Lewis’ ad, has had the most engagement. "@Love the @waitrose Christmas advert having a bit of fun with their big brother @jlandpartners", tweeted one person.

"Argos’ Christmas Fool is the anomaly of the research as it was very polarising."

The analysis discovered that the ad succeeded in generating a single, simple and strong emotional state of enjoyment, laughter, pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment and love.  

Above: Waitrose's spot poked fun at it's partner company, John Lewis. 

The trend for brands poking fun at each other (Aldi and Coca-Cola and Waitrose and John Lewis) showed up clearly in the research as people responded both positively and negatively.

It appears there was some cannibalism within the JL Partnership, as Waitrose beat John Lewis’s The Boy and the Piano in the ad ranking; “I always look forward to seeing your Christmas ad but definitely not impressed this year. Elton does not make me think of Christmas in any way, Waitrose ad is far better,” read one of the report’s analysed tweets. 

"A notable mention goes to Iceland’s Rang-tan ad which was banned from TV screens for being too political."

John Lewis’ ad ranks joint third, with Aldi and Lidl, (scoring 3). The Elton John-starring spot split people’s opinions with the report stating that the keywords ‘wonderful, Elton’ eclipsing the Christmas context and therefore shifting the focus to the singer rather than Christmas. Ultimately it failed to engage people and they took to Twitter to discuss their disappointment. "@John Lewis your Christmas advert is a terrible let down. Totally uninspiring and lacking the usual ‘Ahhhh’ factor... Waitrose, however, what a cracking advert!" wrote one tweeter.

Above: John Lewis's The Boy and the Piano

Aldi gets traction while Argos plays the fool

Aldi’s Save Kevin joined John Lewis in third place with its spoof of the famous Coca-Cola Christmas ad, with Kevin the carrot in jeopardy in a red truck hanging over a cliff.  Its #SaveKevin hashtag trended, says the report, because of its attachment to the engaging storyline of who will save Kevin? Coca-Cola engaged with the brand, sending a ‘Need a tow?’ message to Aldi on Twitter.

Above: Aldi's Kevin the Carrot

Argos’ Christmas Fool is the anomaly of the research as it was very polarising. The data in the report indicating that while a provocative ad, it suffered from the ‘Marmite factor’, with viewers either loving it or hating it, almost equally, resulting in a score of -1. 

Above: Argos The Christmas Fool

A charitable cause

A notable mention goes to Iceland’s Rang-tan ad which was banned from TV screens for being too political. People took to social media to organise a petition (reaching 670k signatures) to show the ad on TV.  The report analysed 1,000 tweets from between November 9 and 13 to gain a view on how people felt about the spot, finding that emotions ran high, with 40k people (60% female) making 50k mentions of the ad, which our analysis indicates had 90% support for the ad and a reversal of the ban. An outcome of this activity is that the search for #nopalmoil trended on Google as those who had watched the ad investigated its messaging. Additionally ‘release the ad’ and ‘sign the petition’ retweets trended. The ban captured people’s hearts and minds.

Above: Iceland's Rang-tan.