These Are The Most Shared Christmas Ads Of All Time

What makes a successful Christmas ad campaign? The obvious responses come first: festive cheer, smiling kids, wintry locations or a cameo appearance from Santa himself. When you think of the ideal Christmas spot, you’re probably thinking of every Yuletide cliche crammed together into a gift-wrapped box and tied up with a box.

However, this is far from the truth. Unruly has assembled the top 10 most-shared Christmas adverts of all time – and the ranks are surprisingly diverse. From musicals and film trailers, to mini-epics and animations, the most popular Christmas ads show that the best festive spots come in all shapes and sizes.

Most notably, we have 2015’s champion German supermarket chain Edeka’s ‘#Heimkommen’. An ode to bringing families together over the holiday season, this miniature drama followed the mould of hugely successful British retailers to set viewers across the world reaching for the tissues.

Whether or not it brought any families together last Christmas, it certainly grabbed their attention, racking up an astonishing 3,984,010 all-time shares. Closely followed by the animation tie-in ‘Minions Go Caroling’, the German spot has set the bar for this year’s festive competitors.

In the third place, we find WestJet’s ‘Real-Time Giving’ with 2.2 million shares. The only ‘real life’ spot on the list, the campaign finds lucky travellers requesting presents from Santa Claus before boarding a flight, only to find their wishes popping out on the luggage carousel. It’s a charming hook that beat off competition from more high-budget competitors that year, including John Lewis’ 2013 effort ‘The Bear and The Hare’.

Though John Lewis failed to top the list, they do have the rare distinction of appearing on the all-time list the most of any brand, an impressive three times. Among those successful entries, we have a lonely old man (‘Man On The Moon’ – 2015) and a lonely penguin (‘Monty The Penguin’ – 2014). Though each distinctive in their own way, John Lewis have set the trend for soaring sentimental Christmas advert, usually scored with a downbeat cover of a pop song.

John Lewis’ primary festive competition also makes an appearance at number 9 with ‘Christmas Is For Sharing’. Controversial upon release, the ad used the centenary of the Christmas Day Truce to confer a message about kindness and sharing.

Love it or hate it, the spot directed by Ringan Ledwidge was one of the most talked-about of the year and raised the bar for the epic scale Christmas ads could hope to achieve.

Of course, not all Christmas campaigns need to be historical epics or tear-jerking animations. In fact, we round out our walk down memory lane with two of the most successful funny Christmas ads, with a bizarrely similar theme. At number 4, we have Kmart’s ‘Show Your Joe’ in which male models use some colourful boxers and well-timed hip thrusts to play ‘Jingle Bells’.

Meanwhile, the NBA’s ‘Jingle Hoops’ finds all-star players like LeBron James, James Harden and Steph Curry sinking baskets in order to play, you guessed it, ‘Jingle Bells’. Clearly what we should take from this is that the next brand to come up with a new, inventive way to play ‘Jingle Bells’ clearly has a hit on their hands.

That’s all for our top ten Christmas ads of all-time, but look out for Unruly’s coverage as we get closer to the day. More than likely, a new gift will be joining these presents under the tree.

Top 10 most shared Xmas ads of all time