Fabulously Festive Or Evilly Exploitative: How Have Christmas Ads Changed?

There's no denying, whatever you happen to think about them, Christmas adverts is a massive part of the atmosphere of the holidays. We all know that the moment the Coca Cola Christmas truck appears on our screens it is officially okay to start putting up the Christmas banners, start decking the halls and stocking up on mince pies and mulled wine and small, individually wrapped chocolates for the family to fight over later in the day.

One thing that many people forget is that these adverts are part of a business' marketing strategy, and that they need to be backed up by strong eCommerce solutions if they are to make the most out of the emotions they cause in their audience.

Festive Or Exploitative: The Christmas TV Advert!

The Christmas season is starting to come earlier and earlier every year. This is mainly because larger businesses are constantly trying to outdo each other in creating the best Christmas marketing strategy.

Over the years Christmas has changed, but the commercialisation of the holiday isn't as recent a thing as people seem to believe. It is a widely-held belief that it was the Victorians who invented Christmas as we celebrate it now, reinvigorating the ancient holiday and combining different customs from all over Britain to create a season never before seen.

Of course, those same Victorians, famous industrialists, manufacturers and shopkeepers, soon realised that the holiday, with its messages of generosity, hospitality and sharing, could be used for commercial gain. The beginning of festivities now coincides with the start of the shopping season, and the days which Christianity used to countdown until Christmas have been replaced with mass consumerism. Christmas starts earlier every year, thanks to the desires of retailers to push their products and maximise their profits.

The Christmas advert is often seen as the avatar of this mass consumerism, but it is that necessarily an accurate analysis? Do Christmas adverts and the atmosphere of consumerism really detract from Christmas?

The Christmas Advert

The fact is that the commercialisation of Christmas has happened, and that some of the Christmas advertising campaigns have been so fantastically created that they are an intrinsic component of the holiday itself.

The fact that Christmas adverts are such a hot topic of conversation as soon as they air, and the high numbers of views they rack up online, goes to prove that, rather than simple methods of pushing a business on a consumer, they are a way of encouraging the festive spirit. Some of them are so well created that viewers are voluntarily exposing themselves to advertising, just to view the intriguing narrative.

Far from being evil or exploitative, these Christmas adverts are proven ways of creating the holiday spirit in the viewer; a spirit which, as religion has become less and less prominent in the holiday season, they are less likely to experience without such prompts.

Adverts like Coca Cola's 'Holidays Are Coming', any John Lewis advert of the last few years and Sainsbury's polarising 'Christmas is Sharing' advert with the Royal British Legion, are such an integral part of modern holiday culture that it is often argued that the holiday season would be a lesser thing without their creation.

eCommerce Solutions Ready For Christmas

Whichever side of the fence you are on, whether you believe that Christmas advertising is evil or integral to the Christmas atmosphere, you must agree that they are here to stay. They increase a company's revenue by phenomenal proportions and it's a given that more than one person has burst into tears at the sight of Monty the Penguin this year!

A good Christmas advertising campaign needs to be backed up with an efficient, trust-worthy website to ensure that the mass of traffic the business is going to attract arrives at a platform with the ability to satisfy the expectations your advertising campaign has raised.

Here at Advansys, we specialise in creating innovative eCommerce Solutions to ensure that your business is in prime position to take advantage of the massive holidays sentiments that Christmas advertising creates. Even the ads of another company go to put your audience in a 'Christmassy' mood, so any business should be overjoyed that such high-profile advertisements are an integral part of the holidays.

For more information on how our incredible eCommerce solutions can help your business to make the most out of Christmas and the holiday retail rush, contact us today on 0845 838 2700, visit our website, or email us at sales@advansys.com.