Dr Jake Monk Kydd reviews the impact of Christmas promotions.

For some the arrival of new Christmas adverts is a much-anticipated event, all part of the Christmas hype and excitement. The Christmas season seems to open as soon as midnight rolls around on Halloween.  For those who would like, at least, to keep Christmas in December this is a whole month too soon. For retailers and many brands though the pressure to ‘go big and go early’ is enormous and one that cannot be resisted.

Figures from the Advertising Association suggest that for the last quarter of 2025 advertising spend in the UK is to be around £12 billion. In addition to Christmas this period covers the usual promotions, seasonal promotions, and Black Friday promotions too of course. From 2024 this represents a £800 million, or 6.7%, increase and far higher than the rate of inflation. So why spend so much?

Clearly all adverts need to be commercially viable and not only pay for themselves but make a return for the retailers too. Good news for many in that case as for big retailers in the UK for every £1 spent on advertising an estimated £4.10 is recouped with a return of around £1.90 for smaller retailers. For individual brands the returns can be even higher.

As Wallace and Gromit are said to have saved Wensleydale cheese from permanently disappearing from delicatessen shelves, this year’s Waitrose Christmas advert is expected to do wonders not only for the store but also the featured Sussex Charmer cheese. The Waitrose 2025 Christmas advert, The Perfect Gift, is already winning plaudits for being the best ever seasonal promotion and has been framed as a ‘mini romcom’ (complete with an opening byline from the master of the romcom, Richard Curtis).

Waitrose have managed to produce a promotion that meets or exceeds all criteria. The casting of Joe Wilkinson, fresh from a star turn on BBC’s Celebrity Traitors, and Keira Knightley, forever associated with Christmas romcom Love Actually, is inspired. The production values are high, and the gentle narrative perfectly tells a story while integrating the Waitrose brand. All of this while becoming a news item and shared widely online. Older viewers may regard these as tv adverts but in reality around 84% of promotional spend is online, this can make exposure to and sharing content easy and result in greater reach for the brands.

The Waitrose advert uses humour to good effect to further underscore the feel-good factor. There are pitfalls for retailers here. Using comedy in promotions can go disastrously wrong. This is best shown with the Sainsbury’s Christmas promotion featuring John Cleese in a Basil Fawlty-esque role in the 1990s. Not only did the attempt become labelled as the most irritating of the year by some, perversely this can work in the retailers favour at times, but more importantly Sainsbury lost market share.

Using emotion, nostalgia, and comedy can be very impactful.  The challenge for all brands is getting the right balance. The challenge for Waitrose is bettering Kiera and Joe in next Christmas’s promotion.

Dr Jake Monk Kydd is an honorary senior lecturer in the School of Business, Law and Policing.