The Gift of Effectiveness That Just Keeps on Giving.
As the ‘Holidays are Coming’ – there’s a clue – System1Group have used their creative effectiveness platform to determine this year’s Top 12 UK Christmas Ads of 2023 based on viewers’ emotional response.
This year’s theme? Consistency pays. Traditionally brands have felt pressure to come up with something new at Christmas. Very few follow the path that The Coca-Cola Company does. The brand was one of the first to realize an ad is for life, not just for Christmas, and they keep reaping the rewards of their investment in the legendary trucks.
This year, Coke comes in second with its holiday perennial ‘Holidays Are Coming’ – or ‘Christmas Caravan‘as it was originally called – a 28-year-old campaign. Coke release the ad every year and it has never failed to achieve a 5-Star score in testing.
In system1s ‘Test Your Ad,’ each ad is given a Star Rating from 1-Star to 5.9-Stars, a measure predicting their potential to drive long-term brand growth. Overall, only 1% of ads land in the 5-Star range. To rank the ads which gained the maximum 5.9-Star Rating they used a secondary measure, ‘Spike,’ which predicts short-term sales impact.
Now the results are in it prompts me to republish a couple of posts I made back in Oct and Nov.
“Christmas is the spirit of giving” and this idea keeps giving and giving and giving…
First posted Nov, 2023.
I recently wrote a post – ‘If at ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ – (see below) talking about The Coca-Cola Company‘s endearing and enduring Christmas campaign. So, I was tickled pink to read that Coke had now scored a “double whammy” with its new 2023 Christmas ad and its long-running ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad, which both achieved “exceptional” effectiveness rankings according to System1.
‘Holidays Are Coming‘ scores the highest possible star rating of 5.9 stars, while ‘The World Needs More Santas’ scores 5.3. System1 chief customer officer Jon Evans describes ‘Holidays Are Coming’ as “the yardstick of Christmas advertising”. Such unabating success gives credence to Marketing Week columnist Mark Ritson‘s advice for brands to “save your new campaign budget and spend it on making your current ads effective for longer”.
But this new execution – ‘The World Needs More Santas’ – cleverly strikes just the right evolutionary tone. The strategic foundation was laid over 28 years ago and the familiar red thread of distinctive brand assets can be seen throughout:
– The Spencerian Script Logo: created in 1885, by Coca-Cola’s bookkeeper and partner of Dr. John S. Pemberton. Yes, the bookkeeper.
– The Contour Bottle: conceived in 1915, from what is still one of the best packaging briefs ever written – “design a bottle so distinct that you would recognize if by feel in the dark or lying broken on the ground.”
– Santa Claus: as we’ve come to know him, that big, jolly man in the red suit with a white beard was created in 1931, by Haddon Sundblom, working with the D’Arcy Advertising Agency.
– The Dynamic Ribbon: commonly called the “wave” was introduced in 1969.
– And of course The Trucks: the first trucks appeared in the original ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad and were created in 1995, by advertising agency W. B. DONER & COMPANY.
With this arsenal of well established distinctive brand assetsthere could be no doubt who this new ad is for. And the emotive message builds on the original story further cementing Coca-Cola’s tight relationship with the global holiday – and all those global sales.
A big shout goes out to the Founding Fathers of ‘Holidays Are Coming,’ agency Doner and Mad Men John Wardley and Ed Klein. Those that came after merely stood on the shoulders of giants – wearing white fur trimmed red jackets.
#Marketing #BrandStrategy #DistinctiveBrandAssets #EndearingAndEnduringCreative
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
First posted Oct, 2023.
Following alone nicely from my post of last week – “The best marketers are conservative, with a small ‘c’.” – now comes Mark Ritson’s article “Consumers don’t get tired of ads, only marketers do.”
Thanks to data from Kantar, System1 and Analytic Partners it appears the general advice for most marketers is that wear-out, at least in the real world, really does not exist. “Wear-out is not some unavoidable destiny for ads, it is possible to create strong ads that can maintain their success”. Marketers look at their ads with such focus and passion that – inevitably – they grow tired of the work long before most of their target market has even become accustomed to it. Taking a big spoonful of customer orientation marketers must learn the patience of the market.
Whilst working at The Coca-Cola Company, I had the pleasure of helping create the poster child for this wisdom. Airing continuously since 1995, Kantar considers Coke’s “Christmas Caravan” as integral to the fabric of Christmas as Rudolph and fir trees. This iconic, proprietary and distinctive execution, has for over 28 years affectionally etched Coke’s ‘mental availability’ into our holiday minds.
I’m proud of the part I played in one of the most endearing and enduring BIG brand ideas and long-running TV ads. Co-conspirators: Simon McDowell and Jerry Howard, take an encore bow.
So, if you have a sound and lasting brand strategy, brought to life with compelling and distinctive creative, just keep on truckin’.