The best Christmas TV advert of the year revealed as Britain votes

Humour shines through as Tesco’s ‘No Naughty List’ is officially crowned the most popular Christmas TV advert of the year in a new study which finds Pepsi’s effort falling short.

From the classic Coca-Cola truck to the heart-warming John Lewis advert, channel marketing agency Boutique has solved the festive debate, by using both survey and online data analysis across the biggest TV Christmas commercials of 2020, to uncover the nation’s favourite.

The Christmas TV Advert Index examined Spotify and Shazam data to assess the impact of the music used in each advert, through to social media engagement and sentiment across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. Each commercial was put under the microscope and was ranked by criteria to determine the best.

Tesco’s ‘No Naughty List’ came out top overall. Its music had the most Spotify plays out of all the adverts analysed and was the second highest Shazamed track too. Furthermore, Tesco’s advert came fifth highest in the social listening rankings, scoring an average positive reaction of 43%. Finally, to seal the deal, it came joint first in the public survey, with 15% of Brits voting for it as their favourite Christmas ad of 2020.

It was closely followed by Matalan’s ‘It’s A Matalan Christmas’ with John Lewis’ ‘Give A Little More’ taking bronze. At the bottom end of the table is Pepsi’s ‘Refresh Your Christmas’ campaign which ranked lowest based on the study criteria. The music played on the Pepsi advert only registered 500 Shazams and the track was not on Spotify to register any plays. On top of that, it only scored an average positive social media response of 34% and received no survey votes.

With music a key feature in any festive TV advert, Matalan’s commercial used Clean Bandit & Jess Glynne’s ‘Real Love,’ which was the most searched for track with 2,038,000+ Shazams1. However, Tesco’s campaign flew ahead on the Spotify plays as it used Britney Spears’ classic ‘Oops I did it again,’ which has a whopping 333,293,700+ streams2 and was the most popular track. Barbour, DFS and Lidl didn’t register any Shazams or Spotify plays as the music used on its ads are original compositions that haven’t been released.

Social media listening3 revealed that the John Lewis advert had the most positive responses across channels such as Instagram, with more than half (58%) of people talking about it favourably. On the opposite end, Aldi’s ‘Big On Christmas You Can Believe In’ advert got the least average positive responses with just 50%. Interestingly, women commenting on social media enjoyed John Lewis’ the most (69%), whilst men preferred Barbour’s ‘Father Christmas To The Rescue’ campaign (56%).

Boutique’s survey data4 within the study revealed a tie between three winning adverts. McDonalds’ ‘Inner Child,’ Tesco’s ‘No Naughty List’ and Disney’s ‘From Our Family To Yours,’ were voted the most popular with each receiving 15% of the votes. There were also three at the bottom of the table, all of which didn’t receive any votes at all – Pepsi’s ‘Refresh Your Christmas,’ o2’s ‘Unwrap The Magic Of Christmas’ and Barbour’s ‘Father Christmas To The Rescue.’

87% of Brits said Christmas adverts are an essential part of the holidays, and 85% agreed that seeing a Christmas TV campaign makes them feel instantly more festive.4 It’s no secret how important they are this time of year and it’s a huge victory for team Tesco to come out top.

Simon Bollon, managing director at Boutique added “It’s been a strange year for many, but seeing the Christmas adverts across the festive period provides some heart-warming familiarity and a real sense of normality. From analysing Spotify stats to studying social media data, we wanted to see which ads we’ve interacted with the most and are truly the nation’s favourite.

“Festive TV adverts are an instant trigger to get you excited about Christmas. I have to agree with the nation as Tesco ‘No Naughty List’ gets my vote and brings a smile to my face.”