A Look at Some of the Best Holiday Campaigns of 2023

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” seems to be the trend this holiday season. From nostalgia to heartwarming messages, brands are focusing on telling stories with their holiday campaigns. Let’s take a look at some of the best holiday campaigns this season.

Mean Girls x Walmart

"Fetch" is never going to happen. But a reunion of Mean Girls did happen for a Black Friday ad by Walmart.

Playing into an iconic movie and character list, Walmart featured Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Daniel Franzese and Rajiv Surendra in their Black Friday ad. The characters are now parents and mentors to the high schoolers.

Cady Heron (Lohan) is the school guidance counselor, Karen Smith (Seyfried) is a weather reporter and Gretchen Wieners (Chabert) is a mom of one of the new popular girls in the school. The spot ends with a performance of “Jingle Bell Rock,” creating nostalgia for the popular film.

“Some things never change. On Wednesdays we still wear pink, but now we shop Walmart Black Friday deals.”

The campaign was created by a collective of Publicis Groupe agencies including Fallon, Publicis NY, The Community, Contender and Digitas. A new creative dropped every Wednesday in November and on Cyber Monday.

“The World Needs More Santas”

Coca-Cola launched its holiday campaign featuring digital and experiential elements, itching 80 markets worldwide. The ad features a world where everyone is Santa Claus before revealing the power of kindness and generosity in the real world. The message is that anyone can be Santa, through kindness.

The campaign includes a digital quiz — “Find Your Inner Santa,” Christmas truck tours and on-pack QR codes with prizes. Its “Create Real Magic” AI platform allows consumers to design holiday cards with the brand’s assets. Coca-Cola is bringing a message of kindness and bringing it full circle with an omnichannel approach that incorporates generative AI.

“Joy is Shared”

Amazon's in-house creative team produced the "Joy is Shared" campaign, conveying that Amazon's mission is to make people's lives a little easier.

Nostalgic marketing is back at work in this heartfelt campaign, featuring these three friends reliving fond childhood memories. The 60-second ad sees three older women revive the joy they felt as children, sledding down a hill after a friend purchases cushions for their sled. The music is an instrumental cover of The Beatles classic, "In My Life."

“Above all, we try to make an emotional connection through stories that only Amazon can tell,” Claudine Cheever, VP of global marketing at Amazon, told Adweek.

Amazon is using storytelling and emotion to resonate with viewers. This ties in well with their campaign focus earlier this year.

“Holiday Night Fever”

John Travolta appears as Santa Claus, walking down the city street to the tune of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees in a throwback to "Saturday Night Fever."

"You can tell by the way Santa uses his walk he earns 1.5% cash back on every purchase with the Capital One Quicksilver card."

This campaign brings a festive spin and an emotional connection together for a fun, storytelling campaign. Capital One tied together holiday cheer with a classic cinematic character to create an entertaining and stylish Santa Claus ad.

“Present from the Past”

Toyota celebrates the joy of creating holiday memories with family through its holiday campaign, “Present from the Past.”

The ad tells the story of a young woman who receives a vintage camera and a collection of her grandmother’s photos for Christmas. Inspired, her granddaughter recreates the old photos by going to the same places, in her 2024 Tacoma. She completes this over the course of the following year and then arrives at her grandmother’s home just in time for Christmas with the photo album she created.

“This year, Toyota’s special holiday message focuses on spreading joy and bringing loved ones together for the holiday season,” said Mike Tripp, group vice president, Toyota Marketing, Toyota Motor North America. “We hope that families and friends will embrace this message as they come together to enjoy what this season is truly about.”

This campaign was created by Saatchi & Saatchi.

Strategies You Can Incorporate

• Nostalgia: You might not be able to build out a whole campaign with celebrities, but you can focus on nostalgic topics within your industry or that your target audience cares about.
• Immersive Content: Finding ways to engage your audience is not going away. Create different immersive experiences they can engage with.
• Storytelling: People don’t want sold to. They don’t want ads that just tell them to buy a product. They want a brand they can connect to and one way to do that is telling stories they care about or relate to.
• Personalization: We aren’t just meaning Hello (insert name). Learn things about your audience and send content related to their interests. Personalize their experience with your brand.

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