Woolworths has put customers at the centre of its 2026 Christmas campaign, turning thousands of Australians’ and New Zealanders’ festive food memories into an original Christmas carol, as the supermarket giant looks to balance the festive season with cost-of-living pressures.
Dubbed ‘Tastes Like Christmas’, the campaign marks the first major festive outing for Woolworths’ new creative agency Droga5 ANZ since it won the account in July.
It is also the first major trans-Tasman campaign under chief marketing officer Sean Barrett, who joined the supermarket giant in January, taking over the supermarkets marketing department from Andrew Hicks.
With cost-of-living pressures continuing to weigh on Australian household budgets, Barrett said affordability had been a major consideration in how Woolworths approached marketing for this festive season, leaning into a variety of food and special offers.
“We know that our customers are looking forward to the season. We know that they look forward to the same family traditions, and that food is a centrepiece of that. But we need to have a range of options that meet any budget,” he told B&T.
A fresh approach
After featuring children dressed as prawns, tomatoes and other products in 2023 (celebrating produce), followed by a giant carrot tree in 2024 and 2025 (celebrating farmers), Woolworths shifted its focus to customers for this year’s Christmas campaign.
The ad celebrates the diverse Christmas traditions that can be found in backyards and living rooms across households in Australia and New Zealand.
And customers have been at the heart of the creative process to develop its key assets.
The idea started with a question: what tastes like Christmas to you?
Woolworths invited customers to share the festive favourites receiving more than 8,000 entries. Woolies than selected the more popular ideas to feature in the creative, including trifle and key lime pie.
“We wanted to connect Woolworths with those traditions. We’ve always been a part of those family traditions for our customers, and we wanted to recognise that and celebrate fresh food and those moments throughout the season,” said Barrett, who joined Woolies from the US.
During the Barrett family’s Christmas lunch, turkey is the centrepiece an it will be the first time he spends Christmas in summer.
“What I’m looking forward to most is our delicious fresh prawns and our mangoes this Christmas,” he told B&T. “They’re fantastic in season, so juicy and delicious.”
Audio the star
Another interesting element about this year’s Christmas campaign is the use of audio.
Woolworths transformed customer responses into a one-of-a-kind Christmas carol, capturing the true spirit and diversity of how local communities celebrate the season. The song takes inspiration from the classic It’s the most wonderful time of the year Christmas song.
Barrett told B&T that the catchy audio, rather than visuals, is the campaign’s distinctive asset.
“We’ve done a Woolies spin on a classic Christmas carol, and that audio asset is really the centrepiece that glues everything in the campaign together,” Barrett said.
Droga5 ANZ chief creative officer Damon Stapleton added: “Turning real customer stories and local festive cravings into an original Christmas carol allowed us to craft a piece of work that is joyous, relatable, and uniquely tuned to how Australia and New Zealand celebrate today.”
The song will feature in advertising and in-store, while a Spotify partnership will extend the idea through Christmas-inspired and personalised playlists.
The platform will also deliver content revealing users’ ‘Christmas Cook Profile’ based on their listening habits.
A more integrated approach
The campaign has launched across Australia and New Zealand and will roll out across Free-to-Air TV, radio, print, OOH, digital, YouTube, subscription TV, social, influencer and in-store.
Woolworths took a more integrated approach to this year’s Christmas campaign, bringing activity across social, TV and retail media channels closer together rather than starting out with a TVC and cutting it for other formats.
“There’s commonality in the theme. It feels like an overall Christmas campaign and moment, whether it’s what you see on TV all the way through to what you see in our price and item advertising and what you see in our stores,” Barrett said.
Beyond the campaign, Woolworths has put value firmly on the Christmas menu. Its festive range includes around 500 Christmas products, more than 120 chef-curated food items and its Australian Half Leg Ham, which will remain at $8 per kilo for the fourth consecutive year.
More than 1,000 products are also included in its ‘Lower Shelf Price’ program, at an average of 16 per cent less than their previous shelf prices.
For Barrett, campaign success will ultimately be measured by whether customers choose Woolworths for their Christmas shop, with transactions, customer numbers, sales and market share among the key business metrics.
The retailer will also track value-for-money scores and perceptions of fresh food quality.
With reporting from Arvind Hickman.
