Christmas in July: The critical window for creating a hit UK Christmas ad

For UK brands, Christmas isn’t just another campaign. It’s the campaign. 

And while consumers don’t see these festive masterpieces until November, marketers know the real action happens months earlier. 

July is the critical point when the creative is locked, testing ramps up and CMOs are making final calls that will define brand perception, emotional resonance and revenue through the end of the year.

So, why do top retail brands like Aldi, John Lewis and M&S treat mid-summer as the true start of the Christmas season? Let’s take a look behind the curtain.

By July, most major UK retailers have already developed and pitched multiple ad concepts, selected agency partners and committed to a creative direction. Some are already wrapping shoots or assembling final edits and CMOs are signing off and approving budgets. Why? Because by August, the opportunity to pivot is gone.

But what’s with all the urgency? 

Christmas ads in the UK are big-budget, brand-defining moments. For retailers, they’re often the single most scrutinized and celebrated campaign of the year. The risk of getting it wrong, or even just failing to stand out, is too high to leave decisions until autumn.

Here’s a look into the numbers behind it all: 

• £10.5 billion: Total UK ad spend during the Christmas season, according to the IAB UK.

• 2–3 months: Lead time most brands build in for testing and production refinement before a November launch.

• 58% = Number of UK consumers that say they’ve remembered or talked about a specific Christmas ad with family or friends — highlighting the emotional and cultural importance of these campaigns.

While brands rarely disclose exact testing timelines publicly, it’s widely understood in the industry that July is the pivotal month for validating creative concepts. 

By this point, scripts are written, footage is captured and post-production is underway — making it the ideal moment to test emotional resonance, narrative clarity and brand recall before media budgets are locked. This gives marketers time to adjust storylines, music or even endings without compromising timelines or ROI.

Here’s how three of the UK’s most iconic holiday campaigns used mid-year testing and smart planning to deliver memorable, high-performing Christmas ads:

John Lewis’ “Snapper”

John Lewis is known for setting the emotional tone of the holiday season, and their 2023 ad took a surprising turn: Instead of a cuddly penguin or a lonely snowman, audiences were introduced to Snapper, a misunderstood Venus flytrap gifted to a young boy. 

John Lewis deliberately moved away from its typical tearjerker formula to offer a more playful, unexpected narrative based on learnings from past campaigns and consumer testing that showed emotional fatigue post-COVID.

The ad was in development by early spring, with production wrapped by June. July was used for intensive testing, complete with emotional response tracking, storyline clarity and brand attribution research.

🎁 The result: The ad reached over 14 million YouTube views in its first week, trended across X (Twitter) and contributed to a 4% year-over-year increase in foot traffic during the first two weeks of the campaign. It also helped drive higher-than-average brand recall, especially among younger audiences.

Aldi’s “The Christmas Factory”

In this spot, Aldi reimagined Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with a festive twist starring their iconic character Kevin the Carrot as a golden-ticket winner touring a magical Christmas food factory. It was the seventh installment in Aldi’s Kevin series and built heavily on nostalgia and storytelling.

Creative development started in early spring, with production wrapped by early summer. In July, Aldi tested multiple elements, from viewer response to the Wonka parody, Kevin’s ongoing appeal and clarity of the brand message. Shorter edits were also tested for use on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

The Wonka-inspired storyline was selected based on insights showing Millennial and Gen X audiences responded well to nostalgic, movie-referenced humor. Testing confirmed that the ad struck a strong balance between entertainment and Aldi’s value-driven product messaging.

🎁 The result: The ad contributed to an 8% year-over-year profit boost during the final four weeks of 2023, making it Aldi’s best-ever Christmas, according to company earnings reports. Plus, the social engagement was high, with #KevinTheCarrot generating over 200,000 mentions in December alone.

M&S’ “Fairy & Mittens”

M&S’ ad featuring Dawn French as a Christmas fairy and a pair of talking mittens voiced by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, generated a lot of attention. It was quirky, celebrity-driven and focused on food indulgence.

But instead of a long-form narrative, M&S went with fast-paced vignettes focused on product desirability, aligned with learnings from prior years showing consumers wanted more focus on what’s on the table.

M&S used July to test multiple script variations and voice actor options. Testing helped confirm the appeal of the celebrity pairing and validated that the humor didn’t overpower the brand’s food-first messaging.

🎁 The result: The campaign received over 6 million views across YouTube and Meta within 10 days. It boosted purchase consideration among 25 to 44-year-olds, according to internal brand lift studies, and contributed to a 3.9% increase in food sales year-over-year during the holiday season.

For CMOs, investing in the right pre-launch diagnostics is non-negotiable. 

Consumer insights platforms like Zappi give brands rapid, high-quality feedback from nationally representative audiences. These tools measure key metrics such as attention, emotion, brand recall and purchase intent, and can even give you second-by-second reactions to your creative so you know exactly where you need to optimize.

Here’s some specific areas and tactics it can help you with:

• Storyboard and animatic testing: For earlier-stage concepts, brands are able to test rough sketches or animations to gauge whether the idea works before final (or expensive) production takes place.

• Comparative testing: For brands that may want to test multiple versions of an ad (Think: different endings, narrators or music) to see which combination drives stronger recall and emotional connection.

• AI reporting: To help brands get a head start on qualitative and quantitative insights, Zappi's AI Quick Reports deliver fast, expert-driven summaries that instantly reveal how your ads perform and why. 

Here’s a mid-year decision-making checklist for CMOs overseeing their Christmas campaigns:

✅ Creative direction finalized Is the core storyline clear, emotionally compelling and brand-relevant?

✅ Production timeline secured Has filming, editing and post-production been scheduled to allow for changes if needed?

✅ Testing strategy defined Are you using platforms like Zappi to gather audience feedback? Have you set KPIs for emotional impact, brand attribution and message clarity?

✅ Backup concepts ready Do you have fallback creative options in case testing reveals significant weaknesses? If not, are you ready to optimize based on consumer feedback?

✅ Media buy plan locked Are your placements across TV, online video and social secured and aligned with campaign launch dates?

✅ PR & social rollout coordinated Have you coordinated influencer tie-ins, teaser content and earned media strategy with your agency and comms teams?

✅ Performance benchmarks established Have you reviewed last year’s Christmas campaign performance to guide your testing goals and optimization plans?

July isn’t just an arbitrary checkpoint, it’s the final window to refine creative without compromising media deadlines or production quality. 

The brands that consistently win the Christmas ad season aren’t the ones who go viral by accident. They’re the ones who plan, test and optimize months in advance.

For CMOs, this means using July as your “green light” moment. From allocating budgets to validating storylines, now is the time to make the decisions that will shape your Q4 success.

For marketers (and especially CMOs) Christmas is actually won or lost in July. The festive ads that consumers fall in love with in November? They’re the result of data-driven decisions, smart testing and early sign-offs made during the heat of summer. 

It’s not about luck. It’s about strategy, insight and timing.