December 3, 2024 – A heartwarming campaign from floral delivery service Teleflora featuring a hospitalized boy and a magical snowman is the most emotionally engaging Holiday ad of 2024. 

That’s according to new research by creative effectiveness platform DAIVID, which used its AI-powered technology to identify the festive campaigns from around the world that generated the most intense levels of positivity.

Teleflora’s “The Power of Wishes”, an ad created by The Wonderful Agency that aims to encourage donations to grant life-changing wishes for children battling critical illnesses, topped DAIVID’s Holiday ads chart after it was predicted that 57.1% of viewers would feel an intense positive response to the ad. 

That put it just ahead of a spot from financial services company Erste Group’s that celebrates the true story of the Christmas carol 'Silent Night', in second place. 

In third is John Lewis’ “The Gifting Hour”, which tells the story of two sisters and a magical quest to find the perfect gift. The final instalment in Saatchi & Saatchi's trilogy of ads for the UK retailer, which includes “The Window” and “Give Knowingly”, “The Gifting Hour” is the most emotionally engaging Xmas ad from the retailer for six years. 

“The Journey”, from UK retailer M&S, and Amazon’s “Midnight Opus” make up the rest of the top 5. Other brands to feature in the top 10 include Chevrolet, Suchard and Etsy. Ads from Tesco, Disney, Apple and Sainsbury’s just missed out. 

Top 10 Most Emotionally Engaging Holiday ads 2024

RankBrandCampaign% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions1.Teleflora“The Power of Wishes”57.1%2.Erste Group“Silent Night”56.4%3.John Lewis“The Gifting Hour”55.5%4.M&S Food“The Journey”55.4%5.Amazon“Midnight Opus”55.2%6.Chevrolet“The Sanctuary”54.9%7.Suchard“Martin’s Story”54.7%8.Etsy“Waldo Anthem”54.6%9.Vodafone“40 Years Of Xmas On Nation’s Network”54.5%10.Lidl“A Magical Christmas”53.7%

Ian Forrester, CEO and founder at DAIVID, said: “The festive period is an emotional time for many people – and that is certainly reflected in our Holiday ads chart this year. I would recommend anyone watching to bring some tissues, however, because you’ll need them. Rightfully topping our chart is Teleflora’s magical spot. The ad is almost five times sadder than the average ad and is twice as likely to make people feel intense feelings of joy and warmth. 

“Looking through the rest of our chart, one of the most dominant emotions this year is nostalgia, with around 85% of the ads we tested this year scoring above the industry average. And with good reason. Encouraging people to look back over their lives is a really powerful way for marketers to shortcut a broad range of feelings. John Lewis’s ‘The Gifting Hour’ managed this brilliantly, attracting intense feelings of nostalgia that were almost twice the industry norm.”

All of the AI versions of Coca-Cola's much-loved “Holidays Are Coming” campaign attracted intense positive emotions that were below the industry norm.

Forrester added: “Coke’s AI-generated versions of their classic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ campaign attracted strong levels of brand recall and attention from the start. However, the ads failed to generate strong positive emotions, which were all below the industry norm. The difference between the AI versions and the original were most stark in their evocation of warmth, a mainstay of Christmas advertising. The original evoked intense warmth among 33.0% of viewers, whereas the AI versions were significantly below this.”

Methodology

DAIVID’s Christmas chart was compiled using its AI-powered platform, DAIVID Self-Serve. Trained using tens of millions of human responses to ads, the new solution predicts the emotions an ad will generate, and its likely impact on brand and business metrics – enabling advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns at scale. AI models are built by combining facial coding, eye tracking and survey data with computer vision and computer listening APIs. 

Altogether, 125 Holiday ads from around the world were included in the study. Ads were ranked by the percentage of people predicted to feel intense positive emotions to the content. DAIVID tests for 39 different emotions. The strength of emotions people feel are ranked from 1-10, with 8-10 considered ‘intense’. Data for the chart was compiled at 7am on December 3, 2024. To find out more about DAIVID Self-Serve – available across multiple formats and channels – email, [email protected]