Mince Pies at the Ready: The 2026 Christmas Advert Scorecard, Judged From the Sofa

The Christmas adverts landed this week, roughly eleven minutes after the last firework, and the group chat has already done what the group chat does: split into two camps and started sending voice notes over the top of each other. So here is our 2026 scorecard — part genuine advertising commentary, part excuse to eat a mince pie before eleven and call it research.

A quick note before we start. Ad season is a strange beast this year. Budgets are still enormous, but the films are shorter, punchier and clearly built for a phone screen — which means we're now judging a two-minute story made for a forty-second attention span. Deep breaths.

How the scoring works

Four categories, all deeply unscientific:

• Emotional Manipulation (out of 10): low scores mean the tears were earned honestly rather than extracted with a piano.
• Local Shop Cameo: does anyone actually go into a shop, or is it slow-motion fields and a barn?
• Bus Stop Survivability: could you have a proper good chat about it with a stranger at 7am without things getting weird?
• Would This Make You Cry Into a Mince Pie? (out of 5): five is full weeping, three is a swallowed lump, zero is a shrug and a biscuit.

The big-budget tearjerker

The department store heavyweight has, as ever, gone for the slow and silencing two-and-a-half minutes. No dialogue for the first forty seconds, a lilting piano, and a story about a small kindness between strangers that builds to the sort of ending designed to make you put your fork down. It is beautifully made. It is also so precisely engineered that you can hear the machinery ticking.

Emotional Manipulation: 7/10. Local Shop Cameo: none — it's mostly a lane and a very nice sky. Bus Stop Survivability: 8/10, because this is the one the person at the bus stop will bring up and you can nod along for four stops. Mince Pie rating: 4/5. It got us. We're annoyed about it.

The oddball one with the turkey dinosaurs

The best fun of the season, full stop. A frozen-food campaign that leans into the sheer gleeful chaos of a British family Christmas — a beige buffet, a nan with strong views on seating, and a turkey dinosaur making a dignified appearance at the big table. Nobody is pretending it's cinema. It's the advert equivalent of a cheeseburger, and it's all the better for it.

Emotional Manipulation: 2/10, and the only manipulation is making you want a bag of party food at three in the afternoon. Local Shop Cameo: the whole thing is set in a shop, which we respect enormously. Bus Stop Survivability: 10/10, because everyone has an opinion about the buffet. Mince Pie rating: 2/5 — you're laughing, not crying, but somehow a bit of both.

The one that will split the group chat

There's always one advert that turns a family chat into Question Time, and this year it's the supermarket epic with the celebrity cameo and the wobbly lip. Half the group says it's a lovely reminder about community. The other half is furious, because the shop in the advert is a beautiful fictional shop and the actual branch in the actual town is a self-checkout and a locked cabinet. Both camps are right, which is what makes it so delicious.

Emotional Manipulation: 9/10 — it's practically a hostage negotiation. Local Shop Cameo: technically yes; emotionally, no. Bus Stop Survivability: 9/10, hotly debated, may cause a falling-out. Mince Pie rating: 5/5, but bring a second tissue.

The returning hero

The lorry. The fizz. You know the one — and it's back without a single new idea, and we do not care even slightly. This is the advert equivalent of a Christmas song from 1994: objectively identical every year, emotionally load-bearing and weirdly comforting in a world gone slightly sideways.

Emotional Manipulation: 4/10. Bus Stop Survivability: 7/10 — everyone's seen it, nobody's upset by it. Mince Pie rating: 2/5, but a nostalgic two.

The most underrated advert of the year

Now then. The proper mention. While the big names were busy spending the GDP of a small island, a garden centre in Yorkshire put out a thirty-second film shot on a phone: frost on a shed, a mug, a voiceover from the owner who clearly did not want to do the voiceover, and a line about how they've still got the good lights on the left. Thirty seconds. That's it. It has done more for that business than any billboard could, and it's been shared in village groups across three counties. Local shops, take note: you don't need a piano. You need to be yourself and shoot in landscape.

The ones that missed

A certain high-street chemist went glossy and came out forgettable. A car brand spent serious money on a snowy road and gentle folk music, and by Boxing Day nobody will remember which car it was. And one online retailer has produced an advert so relentlessly upbeat that it feels like being shouted at through a letterbox. No thank you.

The verdict

Best in show: the oddball frozen one, for pure cheek. Most discussed: the group-chat splitter, obviously. Most feigned indifference to: the lorry, and we all know that's a lie.

And the real takeaway from the season? The big adverts are for December. The local shop that knows your name is for life. Now go and get the good lights before they're gone.