The Best Christmas Ads In The Netherlands In 2023

Article by Lisette Kruizinga – de Vries

Introduction

As the days are getting shorter, many of us are looking forward to the Christmas holidays. Unlike our other markets, in the Netherlands Sinterklaas is the biggest wintertime holiday with a big tradition of giving gifts which are either creatively wrapped in a so-called “surprise” or accompanied by poems. While Sinterklaas is already on its way back to Spain again, Christmas trees are now popping up everywhere, and the TV is filled with Christmas ads and movies. Everyone is busy preparing for the holidays and numerous Christmas dinners, which we also see in the ads. And with DVJ´s cherished Christmas tradition coming to an end for this year, we delve yet another time into the enchanting world of Christmas ads.

The role of Christmas advertising

Each year the question remains the same: How are Christmas ads perceived in our markets? This year’s Christmas study was conducted in five countries: the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and the USA. Following the DVJ way, we created an ad reel with only Christmas ads that compete for the consumer’s attention in each market. In this ‘unforced exposure’ methodology people can skip the ads by zapping as they would when watching TV at home.

We then ask respondents what they recall seeing in terms of the brands and the ad’s message, and finally, we show each respondent two ads in full length and have them evaluate these ads. This year we included many ads from different countries, testing around 100 Christmas ads in total, and for the Netherlands specifically 20 ads!

THIS YEAR’S Dutch CHRISTMAS ADS OUTSHINe PREVIOUS HOLIDAY DELIGHTS

We’ve compiled a Dutch Christmas benchmark with 62 ads as we’ve been testing Christmas ads for the Netherlands for the fourth consecutive year now. This enables us to compare the performance throughout the years. One of the key findings we observe is that this year’s Christmas ads perform overall better than the older ones. This year, 15 of the 20 ads have a strong or even top score in our performance matrix. What does this mean?  They score high on both brand building and breakthrough – something that is always a pain point for Christmas ads –, above the average Dutch Christmas benchmark score. Only one ad scored lower than the average Dutch Christmas ad from previous years.

So, this sounds promising, but what happens if we compare this year’s Christmas ads to our regular TV benchmark for the Netherlands? Of course, even though in December many Christmas commercials are running, Christmas ads still must compete with regular TV commercials. Therefore, we visually summarise the results by plotting all tested ads from the Netherlands on the performance matrix that we use as part of our pretesting methodology (see Figure 1). The matrix shows how ads score on both breakthrough and brand building, relative to other Dutch TV commercials.

On the one axis, we have the breakthrough dimension, which is based on our engagement, unaided brand, and message recall metrics. Breakthrough is an important metric because advertisements must ‘break through the clutter’ for people to remember the brand and comprehend the message. An ad cannot be expected to have an actual impact on the brand if it is not sufficiently watched and remembered in the first place.

The brand-building dimension includes positive associations, excitement, and brand appeal. The performance matrix clearly shows how an ad compares to the benchmark and where the pain points are.

Figure 1: Performance matrix Dutch Christmas ads 2023

EXPLANATION GRID: Percentile rankings of all 6 individual KPIs are determined on a normalized scale (0-100) and summarized into a Breakthrough (Y) and Response (X) score and then plotted accordingly on the grid.

The ad from Dirk will not be broadcast on television, only online.

Something that can be observed directly from the performance matrix is that we see relatively many, namely 11 Christmas ads in the green, strong quadrants. Further, we see that most ads perform highly on brand building as the majority of ads are in the rightest column of the quadrant. Surprisingly, all ads, except for the Intratuin ad which only reaches the border, perform on average or strong on breakthrough as well. From previous years we learned that specifically on the breakthrough dimension Christmas ads are falling behind.

So, it is a strong field of Christmas ads this year in the Dutch market, with many ads performing strongly with scores very close to one another.

The Dutch Top 3 of this year

Let’s have a look at the winning ads of this year. How did we get to this Top 3? We believe ads should score well on both dimensions and cannot compensate for a low score on one and a high score on the other dimension. It is a close call, but Albert Heijn is the number one, with Hema coming in second. The third place, on the other hand, turned out to be a little more difficult to determine. Therefore, we lowered the lines of the quadrants (blue dashed lines) to find out which ad would fall within the quadrant next. It turns out that Bruna’s ad comes in third. Thus, the Top 3 Christmas ads in the Netherlands in 2023 are:

1. Albert Heijn
2. Hema
3. Bruna

Albert Heijn

Unexpectedly, the Albert Heijn (AH) Christmas ad does not feature the brand character Ilse the supermarket manager, and her family. Instead, it plays in a boxing gym, and the story focuses on the owner (‘Ome Ko’) who is training a lot of young boxers. They decide to cook a Christmas dinner for him at the gym, and secretly invite his daughter he has no contact with anymore. Hence, a nice emotional story, without surprising elements, with minimal references to the AH store.

This ad scores the highest of all Dutch Christmas ads on positive associations, audience retained after 10 seconds, and among one of the highest on excitement, distinctiveness, and relevance. On the other hand, the ad scores below average on brand fit, which is not surprising since the ad breaks away from their ‘standard recipe’ and does not feature supermarket manager Ilse and her family who are becoming recognizable brand characters. Interestingly, the AH ad was also declared the winner of the supermarket Christmas ads by the Adformatie expert panel.

When examining the open answers of the most appealing elements of the ad, the message of the ad comes back a lot, namely that Christmas is about more than just good food; it’s mostly about the people you share it with. As one respondent mentions: “That Christmas is not just about gifts and food, but that it’s all about the big Christmas thoughts as a whole. A time to not think about yourself, but about each other. Cherishing the connections with people we meet at the table.”

Figure 2: Albert Heijn NL 2023

Hema

Coming in second is Hema (a Dutch retailer) with the stuffed animals Siepie (cat) and Takkie (dog) playing the lead role in a feel-good story. It simply breathes Hema, of course, because of Siepie and Takkie, but also due to the reference to Jip & Janneke (famous Dutch children’s stories in which Siepie and Takkie are Jip & Jannekes pets), the Hema folder, and its simplicity. First Siepie is “all by himself” – emphasized by the song -, but then Takkie is gifted to the child. As soon as they are alone, they can run around the house and have the time of their lives. But, as soon as someone enters the house, they turn into stuffed animals again.

The Hema ad scores highest of all tested Christmas ads on the number of associations, unique associations, enjoyment, excitement, fun, brand appeal, share with others, and purchase intent. Helping one another, and being kind to each other are mentioned most often as the most appealing elements of this ad. Some striking comments on the question of what is most appealing: “Everything! I could watch this every day. Creative and unique…” and “Takkie and Siepie are not alone anymore and enjoy each other’s company”.  

Figure 3: Hema NL 2023

Bruna

Bruna (retailer of cards, books, and office supplies) comes in third place, and the ad most likely excels because of its simplicity. It shows a woman in a Bruna store who is buying a Christmas card. There is an instant spark between her and the cashier. The cashier decides to make a sweater just like the card and decides to visit the woman, who happens to live opposite the Bruna store. Slightly unrealistic, but a feel-good story, which is appealing to the viewers.

The ad scores high on positive associations, enjoyment, and fun. Something that can be confirmed by the open answers. Often mentioned as the most appealing elements are love, friendship, connection between two people, romance, and the warm feeling the ad evokes when watching.

Figure 4: Bruna NL 2023

Finally, there are a few more ads worth mentioning as they score very close to Bruna’s ad, which are PostNL (stimulating people to send cards for Christmas instead of WhatsApp messages), Lidl (with the story of the raccoon, who brings back the stuffed animal to the kid; performed Top3 in other countries), Jumbo (with of course Frank Lammer’s family – now very much focused on the different courses of the Christmas dinner), Efteling (about the magic of the winter Efteling – a theme park in the Netherlands), and bol.com (very recognizable bol.com ad with the typical bol.com humor).

conclusion

In summary, we can draw a few general conclusions:

• The Dutch Christmas ads perform better than Christmas ads from previous years.
• Additionally, when comparing them with regular TV ads, we find that this year’s Christmas ads are performing very well!
• Finally, almost all Christmas ads perform strongly on brand building, and they make you happy and put a smile on your face.

Finally, we’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2024 from everyone at DVJ!