Magical M&S Ad is the Most Emotionally Engaging Christmas Ad (So Far) According to New AI Ranking

A magical Marks & Spencer's campaign starring comedian Dawn French is the early front-runner in the annual Christmas ad battle, generating the most intense positive emotions of any of the festive ads released so far. That’s according to new research by creative effectiveness platform DAIVID, which, with many brands releasing their festive campaigns already, used its AI-powered platform to find the Xmas 2024 ads most likely to generate the most intense levels of positivity from Christmas shoppers. 

“The Journey” – which sees French reprise her role as the Christmas Fairy and join her character on screen – currently sits proudly on top of DAIVID’s Christmas ad tree after 55.4% of viewers felt an intense positive response to the ad. The ad, in which French reluctantly hosts a Xmas party for her neighbours, also generated 88% more warmth, 58% more joy, and 37% more amusement than the average ad.

That put it ahead of Amazon’s "Midnight Opus", which shows how small thoughtful acts can bring people together, and Etsy’s “Waldo Anthem” in second and third, respectively. 

A heart-warming campaign from supermarket Lidl and an ad from UK lifestyle brand FatFace complete the top 5. Other brands to appear in DAIVID’s top 10 include Asda, Sainsbury’s, Walmart, and Aldi. 

Top 10 Most Emotionally Engaging 2024 Christmas ads (so far) – chosen by AI

Barney Worfolk-Smith, chief growth officer at DAIVID, said: "We’re here for the magic of Christmas – and that’s reflected in our top 10 festive frontrunners, which have strong themes of escapism, adventure, nostalgia, and also kindness. Let’s face it, these are difficult times, so it’s no surprise that people are looking for a bit of an escape from the day-to-day grind – to look back, and also to bring out the best in each other. A bit of magic to distract from the mundane.  

"'The Journey' brings a bit of much-needed sparkle and joy. After all, who wouldn’t want their very own festive fairy to help them navigate the madness of Christmas. Like a modern day Christmas Carol, we see national treasure Dawn French going from party humbug to party hero, thanks to a little M&S Food magic. With the brand integral to the ad’s narrative, it’s also highly effective, with the ad generating above average attention throughout, and strong brand recall and purchase intent." 

DAIVID’s Christmas ranking was compiled using its AI-powered platform, DAIVID Self-Serve. Trained using tens of millions of human responses to ads, the new solution predicts the emotions an ad will generate, and its likely impact on brand and business metrics – enabling advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns at scale. AI models are built by combining facial coding, eye tracking and survey data with computer vision and computer listening APIs.