Christmas Ads Still Bet on Celebrities Over Creators

Creators have spent the year winning bigger budgets and bigger roles. Then December arrives, and the most scrutinised piece of marketing of the year slips back into a familiar suit: the celebrity.

The first festive ads from John Lewis, SharkNinja, Ulta Beauty and Burberry show the pattern. Sephora casts Seth Rogen as a man out of his depth until a Beauty Advisor rescues him. Kay sends Colin Jost on the classic last-minute hunt for the perfect gift. Sports Direct taps Nike athletes to guide a clueless uncle. Gucci hosts Mariah Carey for another December lap.

Celebrity as a safety blanket

None of this is a secret formula, but it is a comforting one. A famous face is advertising tinsel: rarely innovative, yet a tree without it can look bare to a CMO who knows how quickly festive ads spin into backlash.

John Lewis is the latest example. Within a day of release, Piers Morgan called its ad “possibly the worst advert I’ve ever seen for anything” and Mumsnet commentators read the children as ungrateful. The star, Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, largely escaped the online fire.

Lynne Deason, head of creative excellence at Kantar, puts the choice simply: “Part of the reason brands use celebrities in ads is because they’re borrowing fame.” Christmas, she notes, is the mass-market moment where a brand needs a face almost everyone recognises, not just one niche audience.

Creators win the year, not the season

That is not a verdict on creators. Marketers have handed them more budget, stage time and lead roles in global campaigns throughout the year. But the Christmas slot runs on older rules: a big film, a broad audience, a senior sign-off and, usually, a widely known face.

The risk cuts both ways. Tesco’s holiday ad with Roisin Conaty and Anna Maxwell Martin became the most talked-about UK commercial in Sprout Social’s tracking, with 3,263 posts or mentions and more than 36,000 interactions. Yet only 51% of that conversation was positive, partly because viewers found the premise unrealistic. Two famous actors got the country talking, which many festive ads still fail to do.

The hybrid already works

The next few years look less like either/or. SharkNinja had Kevin Hart, David Beckham, Aryna Sabalenka and Tom Brady post short teasers to their own social accounts before the main spot dropped. Laura Dyer, senior VP of global brand and partnerships at SharkNinja, calls the line between creators and celebrities “super fluid.”

Marc Jacobs gives social creator Ashtin Earle equal billing alongside athletes, models and designers in its holiday film. Anthropologie went further, handing its holiday campaign to Pooja Tripathi, the creator behind Brooklyn Coffee Shop, to write and showrun a micro comedy series “from script to shoot.” Around 50 creators will then carry it across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and Reddit.

Lego’s new head of celebrity talent and brand-first partnerships, Kelsey Gray Sherman, put the longer shift plainly: the distinction between traditional celebrity and creator is “increasingly less meaningful” to audiences.

What to do about it

For brand managers, the practical read is not to abandon celebrities or creators. It is to match the face to the job.

• Use a broadly famous face when the moment demands all-family recognition and you need a safety blanket.
• Use creators when you need specific communities, authenticity and platform-native distribution.
• Blend both when you want the reach of a star and the relevance of creators, as SharkNinja and Anthropologie are doing.

Source: Digiday