Never Mind The Adverts 2025 Review with Orlando Wood

23:23We do indeed. But the wild thing was, to see the power of an influencer up close was incredible. Because when she got on stage, everybody went absolutely wild. Gosh, wow. And the moment we finished, I'd say about two-thirds of the audience, there were probably 600, 700 people there, hundreds of people swarmed, right, just to get a photo. And the others to see you. Well, there were a couple of people stood on the side going, oh, we came to see you too, by the way. So I had a lovely chat with a couple of people who had flown in from New Zealand to say hi, which was very sweet. But that was pretty special.

23:55And I'd say my other highlight actually was a bit different to the work front, but the wonderful people at Zwift invited producer James and me to join them at the Women's Tour de France. So the Tour de France Femme Avet Zwift, as it's known, which is fine except for the fact we have to cycle up the seventh most difficult climb in France. And we have to do it on the same day as the professionals. And the bit I didn't account, I was thinking it was going to be like beautiful sunshine, music in the background, take it easy. It was cold and wet, right? It was summer, wasn't it? I know, it was eight degrees by the time we finished.

24:30And we had a time limit as well. So we had to finish by like 3.30. And sort of James and I got across the line about 3.26. And they literally were like shutting everything down. Because the pros then, you know, race the course afterwards. But I mean, it's one of those things where I've never done anything cycling-wise to compete with that. And it was lovely to, well, A, a big shout out to Zwift to invite us over and do that. But it just shows if you work hard, you can achieve amazing things. And big thanks, of course, to the sponsor, System One. actually, that kindly... Did you have a big one on your back?

25:05I did. Well, I was wearing pink, actually. Okay, good. I didn't miss the opportunity to brand myself the entire time. Brilliant. I have one more highlight, which takes us, actually, into our next segment. But my other highlight this year was being invited to become a trustee for the History of Advertising Trust. Now, I don't know if you know anything about the History of Advertising Trust. The hat, as they're also known as. But they're this wonderful archive of UK advertising history, going back hundreds of years, actually, in Norfolk, near Norwich, Lower Stoft. And I don't know if you know this, but they've got this sort of brand archaeology service that when you, you know, so agencies can go to, or brands, but agencies can go to them and say, tell me the history of whatever brand it is.

25:54You know, I've got a pitch coming up. But apparently every agency that has done this and use this service has won their pitch. Like 100 % win rate for going, you know, it's like£2 ,400 or something to buy their sort of brand archaeology service for the year. And everyone's won. And it seems like a fantastic resource that no one seems to know about or is using. Their marketing could do with a bit of improvement. Well, I think that 100 % hit rate on pitch winning would be pretty impressive. So I've been invited to help with them. And that brings us nicely to our next round, which is all about Christmas, of course, and the history of Christmas advertising.

26:44So who can help us with Christmas past and tell us a little bit about Christmas? What we're going to do in the time-honoured tradition of phone a friend is I'm going to phone my friend Dr. David. Dr. David is going to join us, and we're going to talk about an ad from nearly 100 years ago, and we're going to talk a bit about the history of advertising at Christmas in this country. Hello, good afternoon. Hello, Dr. David. It's Orlando here from Nevermind the Adverts. How are you? Hello, I'm all right. How are you today? Very well, thank you. I'm so glad you could join us. I'm with John here, my fellow co-host of Nevermind the Adverts.

27:30And we have just got to talking about Christmas and the history of Christmas advertising in this country. And I'm really pleased you could join us because, of course, you are an academic, but you're also something of an ambassador for the History of Advertising Trust, aren't you? Absolutely, yes. Yes, waving that banner whenever I get an opportunity. Fantastic. Well, look, what we'd like to do... Is it a paid-for banner? It's a digital banner. Is this for a real banner? It's a social banner. It's a vellum. Vellum, yes, it's a vellum. Vellum. Brilliant, yes, yes. It's sort of in parchment. So what we've done is we have picked out, or you have picked out for us, an ad for a brand, a Christmas ad from...

28:18Now, where is it from? It's from 1928, isn't it? From Punch magazine. That's right. And who is it for? Well, it may come as a surprise. It's not the most, typically I think it's been the most seasonal offering. It's for Gillette safety razors. Gosh. Yeah, so it's a rather beautiful, rather crude pencil sketch, monochrome. Yes. And with this glorious headline, temptation at a rather rakish angle with a large exclamation mark at the end. So the basic premise is there is a well-recognised Father Christmas with a luxurious flowing beard and a handlebar moustache and in his hands, scaringly, he holds a safety razor.

29:02So this is... He's about to commit the most dreadful... Remove his beard. And it says underneath, if I only dared, I'd use a blank Gillette. So this is years before, of course, the best a man could get, which I think came out in the 90s, didn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. But tell me how this sort of fits in with the general history of Christmas advertising in this country. Because there's a sort of tightrope to walk, isn't there? Yeah, there is, absolutely. Well, I think it needs to be established first. In this era in particular, and certainly through the 1960s 1970s even the idea of a razor as a gift for the man in your life was not out of the ordinary so in this period if you're looking at the big gifting categories safety razors yes um pens and uh dare i say cigarette lighters as well these are the big gifts huge money huge money being spent on on it but the beauty uh and why i picked this particular one because safety razor advertising a razor let's be honest is a fairly mundane item no matter how many blades and how it pivots but uh the this inanimate good is is repositioned at christmas um because it'll allow you the gifter typically the female bestowing this gift to get physically if i dare say closer to the closer in your life absolutely and christmas is one of those rare occasions in this country where we allow ourselves to be a little bit sentimental perhaps a little bit a little bit lovey-dovey so this way this this all leans into that and of course the idea of temptation that you know at christmas is all about and it's um delivered so brilliantly by advertisers it's all about wanton excess yes yourself go a bit so you know daring to do something a bit unusual and the temptation element it's all in this rather glorious yeah But it's quite playful, isn't it?

31:07What it doesn't do is poke fun at Christmas, as some ads can do. And we've seen that in recent years quite a lot. And there is a tightrope to walk, isn't there, about, you know, sort of being too critical of it. But this, I think, is quite nice because it's quite provocative, quite playful. Yeah, it goes so far, but it does not ultimately interfere with any of the classic tropes of Christmas that have been so well established you know um this i i choose my care words carefully but you know christmas is sacred in all sense of the words and there's certain practices um that everybody wants to sort of partake of um you know it's probably the only time of year where you eat turkey it's one of the only times where you actually bring a tree into your house yes um and and everything that goes and goes with that so yeah you can you can make reference to those and have a bit of fun.

32:02I mean, last year's John Lewis had Snapper, the perfect Christmas tree. Excuse me, the year before, 2023. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that plays with that. But of course, Snapper, which of course was the Venus flytrap, although John Lewis was sort of saying, let your traditions grow, ultimately they reverted. Snapper was sent outside into the cold, very sad. Yes, that's true. And they restored the normal tree. Yeah, yeah. Normality all has to be in place. That's absolutely crucial. There are certain things that you, there's quite a broad range you can cover at Christmas, but, you know, you don't, you probably don't want to be upsetting too many people.

32:37There are backlashes against, you know, certain things. There's a, David Ogilvie once said, you know, you might think it's amusing to make fun of clergymen, but a lot of people don't think it's amusing, you know, so, you know, there is a, there is a sort, be provocative, be playful, but perhaps don't undermine Christmas entirely. so well brilliant thank you so much david uh well thanks for joining us and um well we'll speak soon but and thank you for your ad merry christmas merry christmas merry christmas all the best bye bye

33:11well we should probably come and talk about who won christmas in 2025 um oh do you want to need my hat on uh talk about this okay you'd hate me to ruin my hair i know um scott galloway is a big fan of my hair I discovered. Is he? Well he's not the only one. He's mentioning it every time. Thank you old chap. American Crew by the way if American Crew are listening are open for all sponsorship deals and endorsements. Yeah I should say actually the big credits actually to the industry because we've been tracking Christmas ad performance for many many years. Every year it's been going up and this year is a record.

33:44It's fantastic. So the average star rating is 4.6 stars. Average. Average. Which is exceptional. So big, big credit to everybody that's been doing that. Also, big shout out because we had the most number of 5.9 stars this year as well. So I think about five or six advertisers got the top score. It's great. And what I like to see is that it's not just sort of sentiment. It's sentiment, it's humour, and it's character and personality, bags of personality too, which I think is wonderful. And it's also a Christmas of consistency. And I like, I think Christmas is a season, isn't it, where we remember, you know, family, friends, traditions, et cetera, et cetera.

34:23It's a sense of permanence in a shifting world. Precisely. And it rewards consistency. And we have to obviously give big kudos to our friend Kevin. This year, 10 years of Kevin the Carrots. I know, 10 years. And so big credit to the CEO of the Carrots. And I think, you know, it's really become central to the Christmas calendar, the Christmas story, hasn't it? And this year they've done something very interesting with the three kind of episodes, haven't they? Starting with – and they've all been five-star, actually. Starting with the short, really impressive score for the short ad. High-scoring 15 seconds.

35:02High-scoring 15 seconds we've accessed. On the database, yeah. And then the first part – the second part was, you know, the stag and hen do. And then the wedding at the end. And then, well, here they are. Here they are. And so a very interesting way that they've done, they've chosen to do that, the three sort of like a mini-series. They have done it very well. Well, another advertiser actually did very well this year is Waitrose, and they kind of took a similar approach. And I think what I love about Waitrose is the cultural references, you know, to Love Actually with Keira Knightley, obviously the traitors with Joe, you know.

35:32It was very, very well done, wasn't it? It was beautifully done. To tap into what's going on in culture. I mean, you know, the talk about Mordoyazione, and, you know, the sort of the expression through the body. And you look at the way that they both, you know, interact. And it's really beautifully done. You know, the sort of there's one scene where I think she takes his hand and they're walking down, you know, there's just little things that are suggestive of what's going on. It's really, really beautiful. And what I quite like, you know, as in all advertising, often in great advertising, it makes use of juxtaposition.

36:08And so here you've got the, you know, exquisitely sort of graceful Keira Knightley and this rather gauche everyman, you know, Joe Wilkinson, who is wonderful. And it's that sort of the way that they bounce off each other, which I think is, if I can use that term, which is very nice. Yeah. And, you know, it draws us in, doesn't it? It does indeed. I also reached out to our friends at YouTube, actually, and just asked them what have been the top three most viewed Christmas ads on YouTube, which is quite revealing. So number one, M &S. Number two, JD Sports. And number three, Amazon, which I thought was interesting, actually, for a number of reasons.

36:46So that's what now, of course, is a mix of paid and earned, right? Yes. The most engaged ad in terms of, like, ratio of engagement to views was JD Sport, which I thought was interesting. Right. That's the team at Uncommon, which is actually where we're recording. But they did a brilliant one where they gave out 280 phones to their audience and got them to kind of record kind of Christmas scenes from their perspective. It's a great, great use of kind of involving your community in it. Yeah. And I thought M &S is interesting as well because they've kept faith with Dawn, of course. And the fairy.

37:14And the fairy. So that's another evolving story and familiarity that's worked very well. And I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not a cultural reference in that? It feels like the beginning of La La Land to me, you know, where they're all stuck in the traffic queue. and Amazon of course is interesting to talk about as well because they re-aired an ad from two years ago so they did a film of the Sledging Grannies which famously won a Turkey of the Week of course from Campaign Magazine no higher on than that well there is no higher on isn't there despite that being the highest scoring ad of the year on our database and it was incredibly commercially successful for Amazon well I mean you mentioned YouTube so that's one of the things so the Waitrose ad you know, there was this ad on TV, wasn't there, which was the idea was that it would drive people to the longer four minute version on YouTube.

38:04And that's so that I had a look earlier, and it's early days, I suppose, but it was on about 800 ,000, 900 ,000 views. And so I'm just thinking back to Les's go big or go home thing we were talking about earlier. And that's my only concern is how can we get more people to see it? Because you need to be talking about millions of... Well, Les, by the way, is going to be very happy at this next statement. So let me put you on the spot here. So a year ago, by this point in the season, that Christmas ads as a category had been viewed 50 million times on YouTube. What do you think the number is this year?

38:43It's gone up. Let's say that. It's gone up to 500 million. 500 million? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's incredible, isn't it? Now, of course, I'm assuming that's a mix of paid and earned, right? But it just shows the amount of interest and investment there is in going big. So, you know, they've listened to Les, right? Yeah, well, perhaps they have. He did a nice thing in his presentation where he said, do you know what the most viral video is ever? Do you know what it is? No, no idea. It's Baby Shark. And he said, do you know how many hits that's had and exposures that's had in the UK? Well, it's a billion.

39:17And then he said, well, compare that with the four years of John Lewis campaign, you know, and that was five billion exposures. John Lewis was five billion exposures. Because of the use of TV predominantly, you know. Wow. So that shows you the difference between even the most viral video that there is and the power of a broad reach broadcast medium like TV. Very good. Impressive. Listen to Mr. Les. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Any others you want to talk about? There's the Heathrow ad, of course, with the bears, the recurring bears, which is another example of the fluent device. And the Lego ad, too, uses music.

39:58I think the Waitrose one uses music very nicely. She's a star track. So I think you see this use of a character, the face, the body, fluent device, music, references to culture, inserting yourself into culture. I mean, that's what you have to do, isn't it? And these are the ads that people connect with the most. They are indeed. Congratulations. Record scoring. Although, interestingly, I don't know if you read Maisie McCabe's article in Campaign Magazine, but she was saying that since Campaign Turkey of the Week was resurrected four years ago, the standard Christmas advertising has gone up. And she was suggesting in her column that the two things might be correlated.

40:39I think they're correlated, but maybe not the reason that she thinks. Maybe that's the reason why. Indeed. Who knows? It's not that they're testing and getting better each year. It's that they're reading the critique. Maybe that's it. Maybe they're a big stick, carrot and stick. What we haven't talked about, though, is the Coke ad, the AI. We haven't talked about Coke AI, have we? Yes, that's interesting. What's your take on that? Because we did some testing on it, and it's quite interesting because while it scores the same as the non-AI ads. And very high star rate. Which is very impressive, right?

41:11So you can save all the production costs, you know, and you get the benefit of that. And Jen actually did some analysis of it, looking at how different audiences responded to the ad. And what's really interesting, I think there's a big insight in this, the older audience didn't mind the fact it was AI. But Gen Z scored it quite low because they were put off by the facts. And it's an interesting thing that that's a generation that's grown up with social media, that are OK with technology, that are probably leaning more into AI than anybody else. So for them, they actually want the real thing. Whereas for older generations, it's still got a novelty factor.

41:45No, I know. So there's a weird inversion, isn't there, where actually the younger generation probably wants to... Pushing back a bit. Pushing back a bit. Because it was only getting like 2.2, 2.5 stars amongst the men and the women, respectively. And, you know, they were saying things like, you know, it feels a bit lazy, uncanny. You know, I can see the AI. You know, people have talked a lot about the number of different wheels that the trucks have got in each different shot, haven't they? You know, once it's five, then it's three or whatever else. But there's a thing in the behavioral sciences called effort bias.

42:18And this is that, you know, we value an item based on how much effort we think it's needed to create it. And I think this is something we've got to be a bit careful about with AI, you know, created advertising. Because people might think, well, you know, that was a bit, as they said in the survey, You know, this is a bit lazy. So you've got to use it to, you know, you've still got to apply the same levels of rigor and craft to what you're doing if you're using AI, you know, to create the visuals in your advertising. Really important. Otherwise, you will come in for criticism. And, of course, when your product is all about the real thing, you know, you've got to be particularly careful, I think.

43:06Very good. Well, of course, if in doubt, you can always test it. That's true. and we are on hand at System 1 to test your ad whenever you want to and you can compare it to all other ads in a category via our new Test Your Ad competitive edge tool. That's quite right, John. In case anyone forgets, yeah. That's quite right. Just thought I'd get that in there.

43:26So I'll chat with you. Probably it's been a bit of an episode talking of awards. I think it's about time we had our own awards. Oh, good idea. I thought maybe we could, you know, do a star of the year. Star of the year, yes, let's do that. And given that if you can't beat them, join them, maybe we could up campaign and do turkey of the year turkey of the year turkey of the year awards what a good idea which might explain what i'm wearing on my head okay yes for anyone who's listening and not watching yes for those for those do not oh drink would be perfect oh thank you yes i'd love a sherry this is uh your favorite you know i like a sweet sherry a sweet sherry thank you oh that's plenty yeah no you're you're a very generous portion she's absolutely no portion control at all yeah so should we kick off on on the star a star yeah and of course that fits nicely with the system one star rating.

44:10Yes, well, it's got the... The bag. The bag of goodies. The bag. We'll get our star back. Okay. Maybe she's on hand to do awards giving as well as serving. Right. Okay. Big drum roll, please, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Okay, shall I... The winner. The winner is... Of the 2025, never mind the efforts. We've got a lot of winners in here. Star of the year. The jury have been debating hotly all year. And the winner is... Oh, look. It's Aldi. Collie the dog. Collie the dog for the 10 years. of brilliant consistency and the fluent device. Indeed. Congratulations to Kevin, the family. Congratulations to the wedding.

44:47Congratulations on calling your dog. A decade of effectiveness. There we go. With big results. Okay, now we go to Turkey of the Year. So this is for John. A drum roll. Oh, it's a bit of paper. Oh, okay. I have to look and see what's inside this. So the winner of Turkey of the Year is... Campaign Magazine. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Gosh, gosh. oh my goodness well there we are so they'll be they'll be throwing brussels sprouts at me as we speak they will John you know how to make yourself popular I do indeed but I think if you're gonna if you're gonna create a turkey of the week you've got to get it you've got to be able to dish have it dished back at you well indeed indeed well cheers yes Merry Christmas again and enjoy the sherry

45:34so that's it from me no it's not we've got a final round oh we've got a final round Don't try and finish too early because you know what's next. Damn, I'll try to get out of this final round. You know what's next. Damn. Is this the one that I fail at every time? This is the one you fail at every time. So are you ready for this? Is this name that tune? Let's say, I think. I need Collie on my side. I think you should compete against Collie. What? Collie will probably do better than me. Which one of you gets it first. Collie, you can growl if you get this, right? Okay. Okay, here's Collie. Collie and I are going to attempt to get this one.

46:02So are we ready for this? It is Christmas themed, but the campaign was not Christmassy. Okay. But the music is Christmassy. OK. And of course, we are going back into history for this. So you'll have to stretch your memory banks. How far back into history? Quite a way. I mean, in your lifetime. Was I alive? In my lifetime. OK. Even in your lifetime too, Kerry. So yes, are you ready? Are we ready for this? All right. Bring it on. OK. OK, here we go.

46:40How do I know there's going to be classical music?

46:46Come on, guys. It's a Christmas ad. No, it's not a Christmas ad. It's not a Christmas ad. Oh, I thought it was a Christmas thing. Oh, give me a clue. This is, let me give you a clue. It's from The Nutcracker. I knew The Nutcracker. No, I got that bit. It's not Frère Roche, is it? Close. Totally wrong brand. Am I in the right category? In the right category. It says chocolate. Is it Galaxy? No. No. It's not Galaxy. Kerry works at this company. Kerry works at this company and didn't get it. It says Cadbury, Bourneville. Yes, Cadbury. Whisper. No. Shall I just put you out of your misery? It's Everyone's a Fruit and Nutcase.

47:28It's Fruit and Nut. The Nutcracker. And they use the Nutcracker. The Dance des Moulins from the Nutcracker. Do you remember it with Frank Muir? Everyone's a Fruit and Nutcase. seems to sing. Come on, you're not that much younger than me. Yes, well, congratulations for not getting it again. I don't know how I can make these any easier. I thought you were going to do like Holidays are Coming or something like that. Give me an easy one. How could you not get it? Next year, Orlando, next year, you're going to have to like, you know. Yeah, well, it's the Dance du Moulinatant. So it was from, and that's the dance of the reed flutes.

48:01So that's what you could hear. It tipped my tongue, that was it. That's what you could hear. For Calvary's Fruit and Nut. Very successful campaign, which I'm surprised Kerry doesn't know about, given that it was a big Cadbury thing. Well, big kudos to the Cadbury team for their consistent use of creativity. There we go. Well, enjoy your fruit and nuts over Christmas. Yes, you too. Have a wonderful break. Enjoy the sherry. Don't drink too much. I will. I will. And yes, anything exciting? Nothing exciting? I'm escaping to Suffolk. So we're off to Suffolk. With Teddy the dog as well, who basically is about the same size as Collie.

48:37So he'll be coming with us. And the same colour as well. Indeed, the same colour. Very good. Well, yes, at home and with family. So, yes. Enjoy. You too. We should do the outro, of course, shouldn't we, old chap? Yes. What is the outro? And that's all from me. Oh, yes. And that's all from him. Till next time. Bye-bye. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show.

49:15So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.