A heartwarming Disney film about a little girl whose doodle comes to life after Santa mistakes her drawing for a Christmas wish is the most emotionally engaging ad of the festive season. That’s according to new analysis from DAIVID, which used its AI-powered creative testing platform to identify the Yuletide campaigns that sparked the most intense positive emotions among viewers.
“Best Christmas Ever”, directed by Academy Award winner Taika Waititi, finished top of DAIVID’s festive rankings after generating an intense positive emotional response from nearly six in 10 viewers (58.2 per cent) – the highest of any Xmas ad this year.
The ad finished top after generating more than twice the intense feelings of adoration (+169 per cent), nostalgia (+149 per cent), warmth (+125 per cent) and joy (+115 per cent) than the average ad.
That put it just ahead of Waitrose’s rom-com inspired “The Perfect Gift”, starring Keira Knightly and Joe Wilkinson, and John Lewis’ “Where Loves Lives” – the most emotionally-engaging festive campaign from the retailer in almost a decade – in second and third places respectively.
Festive spots from Lego and Tesco make up the rest of the top 5 places. Other brands to feature in the top 10 include Gap, Walmart and Barbour. Ads from Asda (11th), Aldi (13th), Sainsbury’s and M&S Food (joint 14th) just missed out.
Top 10 Most Emotionally Engaging Christmas ads 2025
|
Rank |
Brand |
Campaign |
% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1. |
Disney |
58.2% |
||
|
2. |
Waitrose |
56.1% |
||
|
3. |
John Lewis |
55.8% |
||
|
4. |
Lego |
55.0% |
||
|
5. |
Tesco |
54.4% |
||
|
6. |
Gap |
53.7% |
||
|
7. |
Walmart |
53.5% |
||
|
8. |
Crayola |
53.4% |
||
|
9. |
Burberry |
53.1% |
||
|
10. |
Barbour |
53.0% |
Ian Forrester, CEO and founder at DAIVID, said: “The festive period is a special time of year – a season of feelings when we are more likely to think with our hearts than our heads. For brands, this means there’s no greater opportunity to make an emotional connection with their audiences, as long as they create the right content. Disney does just that with a beautiful story that proves the holidays are all about heart.
“Of course, this is something that John Lewis knows all too well. For years, the retailer set the standard for emotional advertising, making it a fixture in the Yuletide calendar and it’s great to see them return this year with their most emotionally engaging ad for over a decade. ‘Where Love Lives’ is beautifully told and an incredible addition to the John Lewis Christmas canon.”
DAIVID’s Christmas chart was compiled using its AI-powered platform Creative Data API. 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, 105 Christmas ads 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 6am on November 17, 2025.
