With Christmas day coming fast, weary holiday shoppers are turning to quick-and-easy solutions. And what’s easier than ordering a pizza and an online gift? This week, Best Buy tops all other retailers in its category by introducing last-minute gifters to the idea of online ordering with in-store pick up. Meanwhile Pizza Hut seduces us with cheesy images of holiday decorations and delicious pizza.
Ad of the Week: Category Overachiever
Best Buy has been popping up in our feed a lot lately. Not only did they setout to air 11 new, celebrity-filled holiday commercials this season, but they were also named Brand to Watch last month. “That Night”, featuring Maya Rudolph, came in with an Ace Score of 595, which is 20.7% higher than the 12-month Other Retail Stores category average.
Women are particularly fond of this 15-second spot, scoring it over 13% higher than what men, on average, scored the commercial. However, keep in mind, men ages 50+ rated the ad 101 points lower than the ad’s average Ace Score.
While including a celebrity can often hurt an ad’s performance rather than help it, it seems Maya Rudolph was a good choice for casting. Of the Best Buy holiday ads we’ve scored that include Rudolph, very few of the optional verbatim responses mention disliking the actress; for that matter, very few mention the actress at all, which, in the case of celebrities, is usually a good thing.
This is the highest rated Best Buy ad consumers have scored this season. The ad’s creative mixture of humor and the in-store pick up promotion is what set it apart from the rest of Best Buy’s holiday creative.
Watch this year’s winning Ads of the Week by Category Overachievers.
Although people don’t generally associate the holidays with Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), Pizza Hut has baked its way into the seasonal scene with this week’s top scoring ad “All Hail Andy”. Earning the highest Ace Score of all ads to debut last week, consumers awarded this spot a score of 626. A mouthwatering combination of humor, festive lights, and favorite foods brought this spot its Top Ace Score glory.
A quick look at the chart comparing how males and females of different ages rated Pizza Hut’s new ad immediately makes you wonder why women ages 36 to 49 loved this ad nearly 11% more than the average consumer.
As seen in the demographic-specific word cloud below, these female respondents were especially hungry for the promotion, pizza and the “cute” Christmas story.
Like many QSR spots, Attention is the stand-out component in “All Hail Andy”, coming in over 9% higher than the 90-day QSR average.
As we’re closing in on over 400 new holiday ads this season, we may only have one more week of Santa-filled, Christmas-lit, gift giving Ad of the Week winners.
