In this op-ed, Paper Moose’s head of strategy Annabelle Rogers delves into why consistency, rather than novelty, is the winning strategy when it comes to Christmas ads. With a long-form storytelling approach, she argues, brands can build connection over time, fostering trust instead of burning through budgets with no return.
It’s Christmas ad season. Every year brands chase the same brief: make something emotional, memorable, destined to become a “new classic”. And every year, most of it vanishes by Boxing Day, never to be seen again.
Because the uncomfortable truth is this. At Christmas, we do not crave novelty. We crave return.
We rewatch Home Alone, Die Hard, Love Actually not because we have forgotten the ending, but because we know it by heart. The pleasure is anticipation, not revelation. The scream after the aftershave. The sprint through the airport. The moment we have been waiting for.
These stories anchor us. They feel safe, familiar and earned. And they work precisely because they do not reset every year.
So, why does advertising keep pretending it has to?
Brands often behave as if Christmas ads wear out in the few short weeks they run. As if familiarity is a risk rather than the reward. But the evidence increasingly points the other way. The strongest Christmas advertising is not built on reinvention. It is built on accumulation.
This is where brands like John Lewis get it right. Their ads, while each unique, are a recognisable format that returns year after year, creating a sense of cultural appointment viewing. Marketing science backs this up, and our own Moose Review analysis does too. Consistency is not boring. It is magnetic and John Lewis is incredibly consistent.
Of course, you can run the same Christmas ad for a second year like Woolworths or Amazon. That is a different form of consistency. It is not about evolving a narrative or adding chapters. It is about betting on wear-in, trusting that repetition will deepen emotional response over time.
That strategy can absolutely work, but only when the story is genuinely entertaining to begin with. Without that entertainment value, repetition simply accelerates fatigue and certainly doesn’t create the water cooler moment.
A smarter model comes from Aldi and its now-iconic star, Kevin the Carrot. Kevin works because he is not trapped in a single execution. He evolves. Each Christmas is a new chapter in a familiar world. Same character, same tone, new emotional beat. That is how stories stay alive.
This is the lesson Australian brands should be paying attention to.
Christmas advertising should stop chasing the perfect standalone film and start thinking like long-form storytellers. Borrow from our northern friends. Consistency creates anticipation. Formats like John Lewis prove that audiences come back when they know what kind of story they are stepping into.
Characters build memory. When key characters, settings or themes persist, brands earn the right to entertain again and again.
Chapters beat one-offs. A series of connected stories, across a season or across years, allows brands to build equity rather than burn budget.
Christmas ads should feel like traditions, not experiments. Stories we look forward to, not content we scroll past.
The films we love most at Christmas did not earn their place overnight. Advertising should stop trying to do so. Build chapters. Build familiarity. And maybe, just maybe, earn a place in the festive rewatch list alongside the classics.
