Coca-Cola drops Christmas brand campaign to focus on ‘Holidays are Coming’

This year, Coca-Cola will not launch a new brand Christmas campaign, opting to concentrate on its enduring holiday ad, “Holidays are Coming.”

In 2020 and 2021, the soft drink juggernaut released a second brand film to broadcast alongside Holidays are Coming, but this year it will just air its iconic Christmas trucks ad, which has been seen on television every year since 1995.

This year, Holidays are Coming has yet to premiere on television, but it will do so before the month is over. The commercial, which is frequently seen as a sign that Christmas has truly started, continues to rank among the best holiday advertisements each year.

The second most effective Christmas advertisement of 2021, according to effectiveness analysis company System1, was Holidays are Coming from last year. Only Aldi’s “A Christmas Carrot” campaign beat Coca-Cola’s “exceptional” five-star rating, which was given to all of the year’s holiday advertisements as a predictor of their capacity to build brands.

The same conclusion was reached in an analysis by the insights and consulting firm Kantar, which also ranked the advertisement in the top 2% of all UK advertisements for its capacity to foster brand connection.

Coca-Cola’s additional Christmas campaign for 2021 is under the “True Magic” platform and celebrates “the human connection”, with the story of a boy without a chimney. This ad ranks 19th on System1’s platform, receiving a “good” score of 3.7/5 on its star rating system.

Last year, Coca-Cola achieved great results in two of its festival ads, including “The Letter”. The letter describes a father on a mission to hand-deliver a letter to Santa and placed fourth overall for Christmas Ads 2020 with 5.4 stars.

However, Holidays are Coming earned 5.9 stars in 2020 and were System1’s top Christmas ad that year. Kantar also ranks it as the best Christmas ad of 2020, considering it the best-performing ad in 7/10 key metrics and a 96/100 rating for long-term payback potential.

The long duration of ads The upcoming Holidays are phenomenal, with marketers often worried that audiences will get bored with their ads after a while. However, research exclusively shared by System1 with Marketing Week earlier this week shows that the impact of effective advertising does not decrease significantly over time, and in some cases, effectiveness can even improve. benevolent.

However, Holidays are Coming faces especially strong competition this year in the performance rankings. While last year’s five-star rating put it at number two in System1’s ranking, this year that score doesn’t make it into the top 10. Four of this year’s Christmas ads scored 5.9, led by “Wishing your elves a Merry Christmas” by Asda.