From Puppets to Vinyl to Dogs: A Holiday Marketing Spirit That Signals a Bigger Shift
Why 2025’s joyful, imperfect holiday ads may be previewing marketing’s next big chapter.
Holiday advertising always offers spectacle and sentiment, but 2025 may be remembered as the year marketers collectively embraced imperfection—leaning into instinct, nostalgia, and unpolished humanity to cut through the noise of an AI-saturated world.
A Dog With a GoPro Steals the Season
Bark, the dog-focused online retailer known for its subscription “BarkBox,” let a dog direct an ad.
Start with Bark’s wonderfully chaotic “Merry Chaos” campaign, which did the opposite of what marketers are currently told to do. Instead of debating synthetic creativity, it gave directing duties to a dog. Literally, Mia, an Australian shepherd–pitbull mix, a GoPro, and a willingness to let chaos be the creative strategy resulted in toppled trees, chewed equipment, and a spot that nonetheless delivered meaningful performance metrics and lifted subscriptions.
Marketing Daily reported that a Bark spokesperson said that Mia’s spot generated 1.2 million impressions, 48,000 site visits, and 1,700 purchases from November 1-23.
For a typically crowded time of year, these are significant statistics. (The figures do not include the cost of ruined carpets.)
A reminder that surrender can be a strategy—and that emotional truth beats machine-generated perfection every time.
UK Retailers Reclaim Narrative Craft
Across the Atlantic, UK retailers—the true “Super Bowl advertisers” of the season—responded to new restrictions on indulgent food imagery (read: unhealthy) by fully reembracing storytelling. With less product to show, they gave themselves permission to say something more meaningful.
Waitrose unveiled “The Perfect Gift,” a four-minute romantic comedy starring Keira Knightley and Joe Wilkinson, complete with a meet-cute at the cheese counter and a grand love gesture in the form of Keira’s Nan’s turkey pie recipe. It positions Waitrose as a true “food entertainment brand.”
John Lewis delivered a deeply resonant father-son story told through a vinyl record that rewinds time to the ’90s, reconnecting generations through music and memory.
Tesco produced an ambitious eleven-part holiday series that focuses on the imperfect and relatable moments of the holiday season.
Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot: A Decade of Storytelling Equity
Another standout from the UK this year is Aldi’s “24-carat Christmas” celebration of Kevin the Carrot, marking the character’s 10th anniversary. Told in multiple episodes—including a Love Actually–style proposal, chaotic stag and hen parties, and a final wedding to his fiancée Katie—the campaign extends across TV, social, radio, digital, and in-store merchandise.
Plush toys and family packs once again sold out, with a portion of proceeds supporting Teenage Cancer Trust. Kevin was also one of our Internationalist award winners a few years ago — and it’s remarkable to see how the character has evolved into a full-blown holiday franchise.
Kevin’s return is more than seasonal whimsy; it’s proof of the storytelling equity Aldi has built over a decade, demonstrating how a beloved brand character can become a meaningful part of holiday culture.
Apple Joins the Movement Toward Handmade Holiday Magic
And now, Apple has added its own unexpected layer to this handcrafted renaissance. Its newly released “A Critter Carol” centers on a troupe of woodland puppets who discover an iPhone in the snow and proceed to film their own exuberant musical performance—riffing on Flight of the Conchords while demonstrating the phone’s camera tricks. But the real story lies in the production: hand-built puppets, real puppeteers, in-camera shooting, and a tactile aesthetic that feels defiantly analog.
“Apple has always believed in the power of human creativity,” said Tor Myhren, Apple’s VP of marketing communications, emphasizing that the film’s handcrafted approach “makes the message more meaningful.”
In a season when AI is the conversation of the year, Apple’s holiday message is unmistakably human.
The Macy’s Parade Reveals a New Cultural Canon
Meanwhile, in the U.S., a different kind of holiday icon floated above Manhattan.
Where the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was once a museum of cartoon nostalgia—Snoopy, Kermit, the Grinch—the 2025 lineup told a story about contemporary culture:
- Labubu… global fandom and collectible culture
- Netflix… streaming as mainstream mythology with K-Pop Demon Hunters and Upside Down Invasion: Stranger Things
- Lindt… the premiumization of indulgence
- Goldfish… nostalgia, comfort, and snackable self-expression
The parade has become a billboard of modern brand ascendancy, with balloons as semiotic signals of cultural power.
A Season Softened by Humanity
Across these expressions, a common thread emerges: Holiday marketing in 2025 is less about perfection and more about connection.
Brands embraced:
- the joy of messy authenticity
- the comfort of cinematic storytelling
- the tactile warmth of handmade creativity
- the nostalgia of music and memory
- the symbolism of modern fandom
In a year dominated by conversations about automation and optimization, the most impactful holiday campaigns leaned harder into humanity—sometimes literally in the form of a dog with a camera or a puppet troupe commandeering an iPhone.
The result? Work that feels lived, not manufactured. Emotional, not engineered. Festive, but recognizably real.
And perhaps that’s the true gift brands gave consumers this year: a reminder that the magic of the season isn’t found in perfection—but in the moments that feel impossibly, beautifully human.
