Where Should Christmas Advertisers Invest Their Media Spend?

As festive campaigns jostle for attention, the question isn’t just what brands say, it’s where they say it. From the rise of retail media and streaming to the return of big-screen spectacle, Christmas 2025 presents more options (and noise) than ever.

LBB’s Alex Reeves asks media strategists and planners how brands can spend smartly this season, finding the right balance of reach, relevance and resonance when every impression counts.

Hannah Walley – head of media, Kantar Insights UK & Ireland

A considered media strategy is all the more important during the golden quarter – with so many huge Christmas campaigns, it takes a lot more to cut through the noise and generate return on investment. Socials obviously have to be part of the mix, with one in four people eager to watch festive ads on YouTube and with platforms like TikTok Shop booming. But traditional media is still hitting the mark with consumers too.

The trick is spreading spend effectively across multiple channels. Our data shows that campaigns using five or more channels deliver up to three times the impact versus those with only two. To make their mark at this time of year, brands really need to be everywhere, with content that’s tailored to the channel but that also has a strong, emotive idea tying the whole campaign together.

Molly Deaville – VP of media, DEPT® UK

Are holidays coming?

If I didn't work in the industry, I wouldn't have seen a Christmas ad this year. While we cannot go on a sample of one, I also asked my family and friends – they hadn't either. I just fit into the 16-34 'hard to reach demographic.' Still, in the last week I've spent time on BVOD, YouTube, Netflix, commuting in Manchester and London, listening to the radio, and browsing Insta, Spotify, FB, and Pinterest. I’m a 'main shopper with kids’, and I even bought something from John Lewis. Still, as an actual consumer, I saw nothing. For the industry, it's a reminder that we are blinkered.

For brands planning to save for a big shared viewing moment, times have changed. Multi-channel, fit-for-platform campaigns are now the bare minimum. With mass media in decline and algorithms reigning supreme, brands need to be brave to stand out IRL and remind consumers that not only do they have a Christmas campaign, but they still exist. My advice:

Invest in your physical assets. This is likely where your biggest audience is, and it might be the only place they see you. If you don't have a physical presence, you need to bridge that gap.

In a time when mass media isn't that mass, consistency is everything. Should you repeat a campaign or reuse a brand asset from previous years? Yes. And invest any savings back into reaching more people.

Think about your digital shopfront. Have you spent your entire budget on paid channels but neglected your web UX, CRO, or emails over the past three months? Reprioritise. This year, I’ll continue my experiment of not ‘seeking’ Christmas campaigns outside of work. It's still early, so I look forward to seeing if anyone surprises me with something unexpected and brilliant.

Armin Basharat – manager of media planning, DAC

This holiday season, brands don’t need to be everywhere, they need to be exactly where discovery meets decision. From retail media’s precision targeting to CTV’s cultural reach and social’s instant inspiration, the smartest spend will balance intent with impact because in 2025, every impression has to earn its place.

[Armin recently wrote ‘The 2025 Q4 Strategy Playbook: Winning in a Shifting US Holiday Market’]

Leila Kazemian – business lead, Iris

In an oversaturated festive media landscape, effective Christmas investment starts with understanding who you’re speaking to and where they truly are. Rigorous audience research and first-party data should guide hyper-focused targeting - ensuring brands invest not just broadly in ‘Christmas’, but in the moments and platforms that matter most to their niche.

That being said, social platforms continue to drive discovery and demand. In the UK, 89% of people say social media influences their holiday shopping decisions, with TikTok and Instagram shaping gift trends and early purchasing behaviour. The smartest advertisers are blending social engagement with e-commerce and retail media networks, building an integrated ecosystem where inspiration meets transaction.

But data alone isn’t enough. The strongest festive campaigns will balance digital precision with emotional depth. 59% of Gen Z now find new Christmas traditions on social platforms, highlighting a shift towards diverse, authentic storytelling over formulaic festive fantasy.

Ultimately, advertisers should spread their spend across a connected ecosystem: retail media for conversion, social for inspiration, and premium video for emotion. The magic happens where data meets humanity.

Lucy Barrett – client director, Radiocentre

There’s no denying that TV advertising dominates at this time of year, but there’s compelling evidence that using radio and audio can be a powerful way to amplify a TV campaign’s impact.

Commercial radio now reaches 40 million people each week (Q3 2025 RAJAR), meaning it can extend a TV campaign’s overall reach and allow brands to speak to audiences across the whole day, in a variety of different mind-sets. It’s also able to reinforce strong audio brand cues that can trigger visual recall of TV ads and can communicate with audiences closer to the point of sale, for example while in the car on the way to the shops.

Many Christmas TV ads also use music as an integral part of their creative to evoke emotion. Research shows that radio ads can build on these effects to deepen a brand’s mental availability, and creative that uses music consistent with TV perform better, strengthening brand recognition and emotional resonance.

Radiocentre’s new research ‘High Gain Audio’ also shows that reallocating budget from other media, particularly pureplay digital, to multiplatform audio (a combination of broadcast radio and digital audio) can amplify total campaign ROI. For example, maximising multiplatform audio share of media spend to 24% boosts short-term total campaign ROI by 8.2%.

So, for brands looking to maximise festive impact, radio and audio deserve a prominent place in the media mix. And what’s more, working with commercial radio and audio broadcasters offers them a fully curated, regulated, and trusted environment.

Esther Scriven – senior creative strategist, Imagination

It is no secret that the Christmas media landscape has never been more competitive. Last year, advertisers were estimated to spend a record £10.5bn during the festive season (Advertising Association & WARC), and with an increasingly fragmented media landscape, the question around attention and impact rightly continues to rise to the top of conversations.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a blockbuster Christmas ad as much as the next person. I spend a week every year with my eyes peeled for the big hitters: Which emotive songs are we going to get stuck in our heads? Will Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot return, and will John Lewis be able to outdo the tearjerker of 2022’s skateboarding Dad? (Spoiler - I think they have!)

However, after a few weeks, these polished, high-production ads risk blending into an expensive, sentimental blur, topped with a sprinkling of guilt when I remember I haven’t made a dent in my gift buying.

In today’s attention economy, brands are no longer just fighting for a view; they are fighting for genuine engagement that feels earned, not demanded. This is where experiential marketing comes into its own. An experience that is physical, tangible and sensory - a room filled with the smell of mulled wine, a light installation that stops your power walking - is inherently non-skippable.

Experiential marketing has a unique ability to cut through the noise and drive deeper engagement and memorability. The brand’s role shifts from broadcaster to facilitator, and audiences move from passive observers to active participants.

When an experience is designed and executed with audiences’ interests at its heart, it will naturally deliver on both relevance and resonance. And, if the resulting moment is authentically festive, audiences will share it organically, generating reach through assets motivated by genuine joy, not a forced call to action.

Laura Bianchi – VP, director of strategy, Momentum Experiential Commerce at Momentum Worldwide

The holidays mean lists. Long lists of shopping, planning, and entertaining. Attention is stretched thin. Mass spending doesn’t always mean mass effectiveness. A mere exposure does not guarantee attention. And that attention is what drives action.

The brands that win during the holiday season are those that capture in high-intent spaces, while deeply understanding shopper behaviours and their barriers. Rather than shouting and adding to the overwhelming clutter from brands.

High intent media placements that tap into seasonal behaviours are a sure-fire way to drive attention and action. Search and ‘best of’ partnerships can capture shopping intent. Order delivery services and OOH can intercept the on-the-go demand of the season. And non-traditional retail placements, like pick-up lockers or on-box ads, can create top-of-mind-awareness for those still holiday shopping.

There’s a price premium often attached with the high-intent placements, and to counterbalance with a need for scale, the answer is often traditional channels like CTV/OLV, social and display. While broad outreach channels serve a purpose, they often become a battlefield in Q4. So when the objective is to deliver sales at the year, close-to-cart moments need to be the priority. Broad reach is better served as a lead up to the holidays, so the brand isn’t explaining: who they are, what they do and buy now.

At the end of the day, there isn’t a brand out there that isn’t aiming for a successful end of the year. Following the same playbook won’t get you there, but understanding your shopper will.

Alex Humpage-Versavaud – chief media & strategy officer & partner, Biborg

In the big picture, the Christmas media spends look to be following a similar pattern. We’ve already seen the annual TV event that is usually the high water mark of the English Xmas ad season - and the John Lewis Xmas ad certainly didn’t disappoint this year. Similarly Coke’s AI effort has sparked a lot of conversation - certainly amongst marketers if not with the wider public. So TV is obviously still the big draw. This year though we’ve got some really interesting developments in terms of how advertisers of all sizes can get on the most important screen in the household.

CTV has seen exponential growth this year - and whilst we were beginning to think about the likes of Prime Video, Disney+ and others whilst planning last year, they’ve now become central planning pillars. Arguably none more so than Netflix, who recently announced that they have 200m global subscribers on the ad funded tier. I’m especially interested in Netflix this Xmas as it feels like with the release of ‘Stranger Things’ fifth and final season, they have a genuine TV event that could be bigger than any of the equivalents on more traditional broadcast platforms - with an episodic release schedule that prioritises crucial moments throughout the festive period, including three episodes releasing on Christmas day itself.

Another area that’s been of particular interest this year and will naturally culminate in a big Christmas focus is retail media. All of my current client work is focussed on the gaming industry and digital storefronts in particular are essential placements for ads - even more so immediately after the 25th, when so many families will be setting up new games consoles. Thinking of the broader market, loathe as I am to recommend further enriching one of the world's richest billionaires, it’s hard to look past Amazon as an essential channel. And not just for point of sale - with ever bigger Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales bringing traffic and eyeballs to shopping sites over a month before Christmas itself, retail now has a real awareness role to play further up the funnel. These big sales pre Xmas can serve to show shoppers things they might want in December.

Finally, you can’t really contribute to an article on advertising in 2025 without mentioning AI. One of the subjects I find really interesting is how we as advertisers make sure our brands appear in AI responses. On Google, we’re seeing a hugely increasing amount of ‘no click searches’ - where AI (in this case Gemini) provides a response to a question so a user doesn’t need to click to find out more. Similarly with ChatGPT - how can we train LLMs to make sure that our brands appear when people are using these AI tools to search for Christmas gift ideas? It’s a longer term plan, not unlike SEO, but if it’s not part of your media team’s thought process now it won’t be long before you’re falling behind.

Megan Boveri – chief media officer, Pinnacle Advertising

For midsize clients not working with the budgets required for a national presence in holiday tentpoles like NFL matchups and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, we tap into custom Holiday and Live Event PMPs through our programmatic trading platforms. This approach gives brands access to premium seasonal content while preserving the efficiency of data-informed targeting and real-time optimisation.

Programmatic execution also allows us to adapt quickly to shifts in consumer behaviour and business needs, while incorporating a holiday strategy into our overarching strategic approach and measurement framework. By anchoring spend in environments with strong contextual signals while layering on audience precision, we help brands maximise both reach and relevance.

Bradley Hartmann – digital marketing manager, GREATERGOOD

Every Christmas, brands try to shout louder than everyone else but in 2025 and going into 2026, it’s less about shouting and more about choosing the right rooms to be in. With so many platforms competing for attention, the smartest strategy isn't just "AI". It's knowing where your message will actually matter.

Retail media is honestly the biggest no-brainer. Shoppers are already in buying mode, so showing up on Amazon, Walmart, and other retail networks puts your brand right where decisions are being made instantly. It’s fast, efficient, and drives real results during the holiday chaos.

Streaming is the new “holiday TV moment.” Connected TV gives brands space to tell emotional, high-quality Christmas stories but without traditional TV’s massive price tag. People are more relaxed and intentional when they’re watching, which makes festive storytelling land even better.

Then you’ve obviously got short-form social. I am talking about TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts. This is where culture moves. It’s where trends start. And if you combine strong creative with some paid push, you can create real buzz around your Christmas campaign.

If I had to sum it up: retail media for conversions, streaming for the emotion and storytelling, and social for cultural relevance. That mix gives brands the reach, return and impact they need when every impression counts.

Jenny Yeend, SVP, director of media strategy & planning, 22squared

For Christmas 2025, smart advertisers must do more than just sell; they must connect with the heart. This season is about nostalgia, joy, and shared moments, and media spend should reflect that, while still serving the ultimate goal of a sale.

The big screen, both on linear TV and streaming, remains the modern-day hearth. This is where brands can tell their big, emotional stories, uniting families and fra-milies on the sofa and creating those "did you see that?" moments that become holiday traditions.

But the connection can't stop there. Social media, especially TikTok and Instagram, is where the season's magic is captured and shared (and ultimately converted). It’s the place for joy, humour, and personal engagement that makes a brand feel like part of the celebration and a place to earn a spot in the gifting consideration set.

The biggest shift is marrying this warmth with helpfulness through the use of retail media. Retail media isn't just about conversion; it's about being a trusted guide. When a shopper is stressed and searching for the perfect gift, brands that appear with helpful suggestions on retailer sites can become part of the solution, not just the noise.

Ultimately, the best strategy blends the cinematic emotional magic of TV with the personal touch of social and the timely help of retail media. The goal isn't just to make a sale, but to earn a place in your customer's holiday memory to keep them coming back.