Talking Candy, Woodland Creatures, and Why Holiday Ads Don’t Have to be Fruitcake
An Argument for Treating Holiday Spots like Long Term Brand IP
Every December, the same characters come out of hibernation. The Hershey’s Kisses that ring like bells. The Corona palm tree that lights up. The Budweiser Clydesdales. The M&Ms that bump into Santa and faint. All of which are older than most of the people scrolling past them on their phones, and yet they still run. Still get shared. Still work.
Meanwhile, most brands are scrambling around in November, asking their agency if they can “do something festive” this year. The brief is basically: put people in sweaters, add fake snow, maybe swap last year’s “Merry Christmas” title with “Happy Holidays,” then call it a campaign. Why? Because most businesses treat holiday ads like fruitcake. You throw one together out of leftovers, trot it out in December, and wonder why no one eats it at the party.
The holidays are not a side quest in your marketing calendar. They are the main event.
In the U.S., holiday retail sales for November and December are expected to cross the one trillion dollar mark again. And ecommerce is not exactly sitting this out either. Mobile holiday commerce alone is forecast to hit more than $140 billion and over half of total holiday ecommerce sales this year. In other words, this is not “a cute December thing.” This is where a huge chunk of annual revenue lives. And here is the other thing no one wants to admit.
People actually love a good holiday commercial.
Surveys show that most consumers enjoy Christmas ads and even look forward to them every year. People do not bond with “Holiday Sale Extended Thru Monday” graphics. They bond with stories. A kid and his penguin. An M&M seeing Santa. A little film that earns its logo at the end. So why do these classics work so well? Because holiday campaigns are one of the few chances you have to run the same creative again and again without people getting mad. In fact, people get sentimental when you bring it back. It becomes tradition.
They are emotional first, product second. Research shows emotional campaigns beat rational ones over the long term. The holiday season is an emotional cheat code. When you build a real story in that space, you are not just chasing clicks. You are building long term loyalty.
They also play where the money is. The holiday window is when shoppers are already in a buying mood. You are not trying to manufacture demand from scratch. You are trying to be the brand people feel good picking up while they are already spending.
The real problem is timing.
Most brands start thinking about holiday work when the first office pumpkin spice latte shows up. Budgets are set. Media is bought. Creatives are buried. So you get whatever can be shot in one day and cleared by legal in two. At that point you are not making a holiday film. You are decorating a PowerPoint with snow.
The brands that win start in the summer. They treat holiday advertising like its own mini season with strategy, story, and assets that will be used for years, not weeks. Starting early gives you options. You can build a character or world you revisit, write a story that stands alone as a short film, and shoot in real locations instead of the one lobby that is free next Thursday. You give production and post the time they need to make something that actually belongs next to the classics you remember.
Think of holiday creative like IP, not wrapping paper. That Hershey’s Kisses spot has been airing in some form since the late ‘80s. The M&M spot since the early ‘90s. Good holiday creative does not have a shelf life if you build it right.
So don’t wait for December. Get strategy set in the summer. Lock creative by early fall. Give production and post room to breathe. Do that and you are not just making a holiday ad. You are building a ritual that can run for years in the hottest buying season on the calendar. Because holiday ads do not have to be the fruitcakes of marketing. They can be the main course.
If you want next year’s holiday spot to actually earn its place in rotation instead of getting lost in the fruitcake pile, contact us at hello@goodvideo.co for a complimentary consultation.
FootnotesHoliday retail sales over $1T National Retail Federation, “NRF expects holiday sales to surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2025,” November 6, 2025. https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/nrf-expects-holiday-sales-surpass-1-trillion-first-time-2025Mobile holiday commerce and ecommerce share Adobe Analytics, “Adobe Holiday Shopping Forecast 2024” (U.S.), showing mobile expected to account for over half of online holiday sales and more than $140B in revenue. https://business.adobe.com/resources/adobe-digital-insights-holiday-shopping-forecast.htmlPeople look forward to Christmas ads Kantar / UK Christmas advertising research, via Advertising Association and Ad Association–Kantar “Christmas Ads” reports, showing that a majority of consumers say they enjoy Christmas ads and look forward to them each year. https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/advertising-media/christmas-advertising https://www.adassoc.org.uk/resource/christmas-ads-research.htmlEmotional campaigns outperform rational ones Les Binet and Peter Field, IPA effectiveness work (for example The Long and the Short of It and IPA Databank analyses), showing that emotional brand campaigns tend to be roughly twice as effective and more profitable than purely rational activation over the long term. https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/publications-reports/the-long-and-the-short-of-it https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/publications-reports/effectiveness-in-context
