Aldi's “Kevin and the Christmas Factory'' named most effective Christmas ad of 2023

Aldi’s ‘Kevin and the Christmas Factory’ has emerged as this year’s most effective Christmas ad according to System1’s festive rankings, closely followed by Coca-Cola’s ‘Holidays are Coming’ and Amazon’s ‘Joy Ride’.

The creative effectiveness platform rates each ad on a scale of 1 to 5.9 stars, with only 1% estimated to hit the 5-star mark. Aldi, Coca-Cola and Amazon all registered the maximum 5.9 – as did The Works, M&S Food, Morrisons and Barbour.

System 1 was able to order the top 7 using its ‘Spike Rating’ metric, which measures short-term sales impact. The twelve was rounded out Lidl (which scored 5.8), Disney and Sainsbury’s (both 5.7), Vodafone (5.6) and Duracell (5.4).

“Last year was record-breaking for Christmas ads, and somehow marketers have topped it in 2023 with even higher scores. It’s thanks to advertisers leaning in to consistency and re-using familiar characters like the M&S Fairy and Kevin the Carrot, with a heavy emphasis on traditional elements like Santa too,” System1 chief customer officer, Jon Evans said.