Burberry and Sports Direct ads spark Christmas joy

Festive ads from Burberry, Sports Direct and Lidl received the highest rating for serving Christmas sparkle and joy this year in new research looking at which ads made consumers smile, cry and angry the most.

The new study from Onlineslots.com, analysed 250,000 social media posts using social media tool Brandwatch from November 1 - December 2 to find out the most loved and hated Christmas ads of 2020.

They found that Marks and Spencer, Walkers and Lidl were the most positive festive ads of the year, while Aldi, Sainsbury’s and Tesco received the highest negative sentiment on social media.

Disney, Lidl and Amazon created the three most talked about Christmas ads of 2020, according to the research, while TK Maxx, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and TK Maxx produced the biggest tearjerkers. However, Argos, Pepsi Max and Asda’s adverts received the angriest reactions from social media.

Fashion and clothing brands were praised for their creativity, with Burberry, Gucci, JD Sports, Sports Direct and TK Maxx highlighted. The research also added that one in 10 people found Burberry’s contemporary take on ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ joyful, while TK Maxx and JD Sports ads were 3rd and 4th for eliciting sadness on social media.

Retailers Christmas ads made people the angriest on the whole, including Amazon, Argos and John Lewis. However, the highest rating for negative sentiment is Aldi and in fact, four out of the five Christmas ads that received the most negative reactions were from supermarket brands.

Sainsbury’s infamous ‘Gravy Song’ had one of the most varied reactions across social media and it’s the only brand that rated across the board for multiple emotions - eliciting anger (23 percent), disgust (22 percent), joy (20 percent) and sadness (33 percent). However, 98 percent of social media users loved Lidl’s tongue-in-cheek Christmas ad.

In addition, it seems that females are more likely to take to social media to talk about the Christmas ads than men. The top three ads that women were most vocal about were from Amazon, TK Maxx and Aldi, whereas men mentioned ads from Sports Direct, JustEat and O2 the most.

Image: courtesy of Sports Direct