John Lewis Christmas advert smashes 7 million views on Youtube

Chart of the Day: Top festive adverts on Youtube since November 1st.

Take a stroll into any retail store and you will instantly know that the festive season is upon us once again. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away in the US and on this side of the Atlantic the burnt circles remain across the country from bonfire night. Both these events give the green light to marketers across the top retail brands to release their Christmas adverts. These adverts can make or break a brand during the holiday season, whether it is based on humour, humility or emotion the bottom line come January will be - did it increase sales based on last year.

Since November 1st, the six Christmas adverts that have been first to launch include John Lewis, Argos & Burberry. It's been hard to miss the now yearly flurry of social media activity for the latest John Lewis Advert #BusterTheBoxer (67k likes on Twitter & 446k on Facebook) pushing people to their campaign landing page featuring the video embedded from Youtube. With 7,101,177 views (and growing) in the first 2 days it is truly remarkable but how does this compare against the ads from other brands.

John Lewis is the runaway success, while Argos and Aldi are putting in a good showing with over 400k views & the busiest period is yet to come. While on the surface Aldi is seemingly focused on generating their views naturally, Argos are boosting their views with targeted Youtube Ads.

(I couldn't resist posting a picture of the orange yeti, reminds me of Harry and the Hendersons)

What I find interesting is how brands are using their Christmas adverts, which have traditionally just been shown on TV, as the source material for their digital advertising strategies. In the UK a 30-second ad spot during prime time Saturday night TV will cost you approximately £120,000. For this spend, you will get in the region of 6.8 million passive viewers. As we know more and more people are using a mobile device while watching TV, so it makes sense that brands are backing up this massive investment in TV ads with digital advertising.

It will be interesting how this changes over the next 6 weeks as we move closer to the big day. New adverts are being launched each day but can anyone get close to the viewership John Lewis has gained?

Contributer : Smart Insights