AdMiration feature: Waitrose’s “The Perfect Gift"

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Waitrose’s 60 second version of “The Perfect Gift," a romcom movie-style trailer for their official four minute long Christmas ad that stars Joe Wilkinson and Keira Knightley. 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

While you can view the full ad above, the 60 second trailer we researched can be seen at the bottom of this page. 

The ad opens to a shot of a snowy pub decorated with Christmas lights as a voiceover begins, "This Christmas. One ordinary man…” as the scene shifts to the inside of the pub and a man (Phil) sits between two friends telling him it’s time to move on.  

The scene shifts again to the inside of a Waitrose as the narrator continues, “...is about to meet one extraordinary woman.” Phil is seen turning to look at the woman standing next to him at the counter (ordering the same cheese) who ends up being Keira Knightley. She introduces herself as Keira, and all jumbled up, Phil repeats, “I’m Keira…I mean I’m Phil! Phil.” To which Keira replies, “Nice to meet you Phil Phil” with a smile.      

The music swells with James’ “She’s a Star” track as the narrator continues, “Waitrose presents the story of an unlikely couple, who both speak the same love language,” showing scenes of the two of them at the pub together (to the shock of Phil’s friends), eating food on the couch together, dancing and even baking cookies (of Phil’s face) together. 

The music turns somber and the narrator comes back in when Phil notices a small gift on Keira’s entry table that reads “Love, Mark” ominously asking the question, “But will a gift tear them apart?" 

Phil is then shown on his couch at home, torn up and eating mouthfuls of Christmas cookies while FaceTiming his mom, who suggests he cook for Keira because “Cooking for someone is love, darling.”

The music swells with an upbeat tone as Phil takes to the kitchen and animatedly begins baking a pie, with the narrator stating, “Join us for the culinary event of the year” and a fake review (from none other than Love Actually director Richard Curtis) appearing on screen. 

The scene shifts once more to Phil at the door as the narrator continues, “He’s a hopeless romantic, she’s Keira Knightley.” Keira jumps in to say, "Please say you don’t have cue cards” in a nod to Love Actually as “The Perfect Gift” appears on screen with a shot of the pair smiling at one another. 

The ad closes with a Waitrose green background and the words “Will they eat happily ever after? Now showing online” before shifting to the Waitrose logo and the words: The home of food lovers.

3 facts

• This is a very strong Christmas ad from Waitrose that falls in the top 10% of UK ads for ability to drive short-term sales (Sales Impact: 94) and top 15% for ability to build brand equity over the long term (Brand Impact: 86).

• The spot resonates exceptionally well with viewers — in fact, the ad’s key strength is the emotional journey it takes people on in just 60 seconds, spanning love, like, laughter, surprise and even sadness — and this journey ultimately leaves people feeling love as their dominant emotion (Love: 43% vs 22% norm)! One of the highest we saw from the UK retail Christmas ads this year. 

• This ad feels like true romcom that resonates deeply with people, is well connected to the Waitrose brand (Unaided Brand Recall: 84% vs. 73% norm) and keeps them engaged throughout, leading to a purchase uplift that’s on par with the norm for the overall population (21% vs. 16% norm), but is even higher for those under 36 (Purchase Uplift: 32% vs. 18% norm).

2 learnings

• Food is a great way to convey feelings of love and togetherness. In many instances, food has been shown as a way of bringing people together — especially around the holidays. Waitrose does an excellent job using this theme to bring its message to life with a wonderful feeling of love and togetherness — in a holiday romcom setting — from the meet cute (a term for the initial meeting in a romcom) at the store counter to the pair making cookies together and the pie Phil bakes for Keira at the end. As Phil’s mum aptly states “Cooking for someone is love, darling” — and Waitrose nails this theme, which makes it all the more easy for viewers to tie the ad back to the brand.  

• Emotional storytelling is a wonderful way to connect with your audience. And in this case, Waitrose took viewers on a full romcom journey, starting with what the lead (Phil) is going through at the beginning, the meet cute, a montage of falling in love, something that threatens the new relationship between Phil and Keira and finally a big romantic gesture (with a few laughs thrown in throughout). By tapping into the full range of romcom emotions (Overall Emotion: 62 vs. 46 norm) to tell a complete story, Waitrose captivates viewers through to the end and creates something they truly enjoyed watching (Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.7 norm), leaving them with positive feelings towards the brand. In a world where ads interrupt and people often skip or ignore them, it’s very powerful to create content that people love and want to watch like a film.   

1 reflection

Are you bringing your brand into your ads in a way that’s completely intuitive, so the brand is an integral part of the story? 

This Waitrose ad hits all the right beats of a good romantic comedy trailer while taking viewers on an emotional journey that ends on a high. But viewers could have seen it and thought it was a trailer for a real movie. Or they could have completely missed the brand being advertised. 

But that’s not the case here. Waitrose integrated the brand in a way that felt natural and wasn’t jarring, and resulted in high brand recall — an impressive feat! And cleverly done. 

With the scene in the store and the food woven throughout the story, the brand is an enabler of the romantic connection between the two characters. The “Waitrose presents” narration in the beginning helps cue the brand in a way that feels like a movie trailer. And Waitrose green is used throughout. 

Waitrose presented a masterclass in subtle but impactful branding here and the result is something that truly resonates with viewers, with some sharing: “It’s one of my favourite of the crop this Christmas. Lovely storyline and feel good atmosphere”, "I loved everything about the advert especially the characters and Christmas theme" and “I like the humour, the romance and the cosiness of the festive season. It has a premium feel to it.”

For their 2025 Christmas holiday ad campaign, Waitrose combined food and romantic comedy in 'The Perfect Gift', a four minute long spot which stars none other than actress Keira Knightley as herself and comedian Joe Wilkinson as Phil.

The four minute short film and trailers (30 and 60 seconds) were directed by BAFTA-award winning Molly Manners and produced by Biscuit Filmworks, with creative from Wonderhood Studios.

The campaign highlights how Waitrose is there to help you share the love through food over the holidays. As Wonderhood’s founder and CCO Aidan McClure shares, “Marketing it like a movie allows us to enter those more traditional spaces that retailers operate in. Everything's well-branded and driving audiences to watch this film, but in a way that's really selling Waitrose. We want audiences to be entertained and to talk about our advertising.”

Jack Croft, Executive Creative Director at Wonderhood, adds, “Food plays such a central role in them, like in ‘Bridget Jones’ with the blue soup, there's always like a moment where food is pivotal in the story. It felt like food had a really crucial role, rather than feeling like, ‘Oh, we're tacking food on to the story.”

On the style of their campaign, Nathan Ansell, Chief Customer Officer at Waitrose, also shared, “Our four-minute Christmas film, an industry first — pays homage to the seasonal romantic comedy tradition — celebrates the exciting and elevated Waitrose festive food. It’s the perfect gift from Waitrose, to you.” 

The campaign will run across TV stations, social and digital platforms as well as OOH.

Delivering a wonderfully festive romcom spot, this ad from Waitrose landed in the top 10% of UK ads for ability to drive short-term sales and top 15% for ability to build brand equity over the long term (Sales Impact: 94, Brand Impact: 86).

And while this spot resonated well among all viewers, it ranked even higher for adults under 36, landing in the top 2% for sales and brand impact! (Sales Impact: 98, Brand Impact: 98).

As an industry first, with a four minute ad and separate trailers for it, it’s no surprise that viewers found the ad to be highly distinctive, which allows it to drive great reach and be noticed and remembered (Distinctiveness: 4.0 vs. 3.7 norm, Claimed Attention 4.1 vs. 3.7 norm, Brand Distinctiveness 3.7 vs. 3.5 norm).

While creating a full-blown trailer could certainly cause confusion among viewers, the inclusion of the Waitrose logo (including the “Waitrose presents” line), the store setting in the beginning and the color green as well as the theme of food bringing people together made the Waitrose brand stand out and be remembered (Unaided Brand Recall: 84% vs. 73% norm). And with a brand recall score that is more than 10% above the norm, it’s clear that audiences understand this is an ad, and a Waitrose ad specifically.

By taking them on a full romcom journey with all the emotions, this spot strongly resonates with audiences and captures their attention through to the end. They enjoy it (Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.7 norm), find it relevant (Relevance: 3.6 vs. 3.4 norm) and of course emotionally resonate (Overall Emotion: 62 vs. 46 norm) with the ad, driven by a high love score of 43% (compared to a norm of 22%).

But again, this is even higher among those under 36! They enjoy it even more (Enjoyment: 4.5 vs. 3.9 norm), find it more relevant (Relevance: 4.3 vs. 3.7 norm) and they find it incredibly emotionally resonant (Overall Emotion: 82 vs. 57 norm) — driven by an exceptionally high love score of 67% compared to the norm of 30%!

Because of this, it’s no surprise that the ad’s key strength is the emotional journey it takes people on in just 60 seconds. 

The ad starts with an immediate swell of love from viewers when the voiceover begins with “This Christmas” and we’re introduced to Phil, and surprise and more love when Keira first comes on screen. There are laughs during their meet cute, with Phil messing up his name and Keira making a little joke out of it. There’s more love when you see them together in the pub and Phil’s friends are surprised. Laughter comes through during their cute montage of moments with food, dancing and when Keira accidentally shoves Phil off the sidewalk. Then a burst of surprise is seen when we see the gift from Mark and some sadness when Phil is sad and on the phone with his mom. But love comes in again as soon as the music turns upbeat and Phil starts cooking, and more laughter when Keira says “Please say you don’t have cue cards.” 

The highest spike of love occurs when “The Perfect Gift” comes on screen and we see the two characters come together — resulting in a full journey of emotions that ends on a great high note!

Diving deeper into what viewers specifically like about this ad, the most common themes among respondents were the emotional appeal (it’s funny, cute and romantic), the story, the two celebrities (Celebrity Appeal: 4.2 vs. 3.6 norm) and the music (Music Appeal: 4.0 vs. 3.7 norm). 

Here’s what some people had to say: 

• “I like the humour, the romance and the cosiness of the festive season. It has a premium feel to it.”

• “It’s one of my favourite of the crop this Christmas. Lovely storyline and feel good atmosphere.”

• "It tells a story and is festive and follows a well trodden and successful path by Richard Curtis.”

• "Imperfect things are the realest, it was a wonderful holiday for the unlikely couple that speaks the same love language."

• "I liked the videography, script and of course Keira Knightley is never a bad thing.”

• "I like the love story between Phil (Joe Wilkinson) and Keira Knightley, as they are the most imperfect match"

• "I loved everything about the advert especially the characters and Xhristmas theme."

• "I thought the idea of bumping into Keira Knightley and proceeding to date her was a most amusing improbability."

All of this leads to a purchase uplift that’s on par with the norm for the overall population (21% vs. 16% norm) and an even higher purchase consideration for those under 36 (Purchase Uplift: 32% vs. 18% norm) — a true win for a retail brand in general during the holidays, but even more so for what was certainly a risky approach that Waitrose landed superbly!

What a perfectly executed ad from Waitrose that wonderfully captures the magic of romcoms and Christmas! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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