Brands with affordable hosting at their core (predominantly supermarkets and discount stores) are zeroing in on entertainingly realistic, unusually nuanced depictions of the festive season, ranging from petty grievances and familial frustrations to frenetic visits to relatives, celebrating the big day with colleagues and Mums’ dreams of quiet-quitting Christmas. Skewering an aspirational Christmas is an astute way to connect with cost-conscious consumers while being universally relatable.

Several empathetic brands have transformed a perennial Holiday focus – connection – into something bolder and more resonant for 2025, focusing on bridging emotional divides. Particularly apt for brands with connection or family at their heart (such as telecoms firms, toy retailers and department stores), family disconnection, the harms of screen-based childhoods and teenage alienation all feature.

Trading on tactics and tools discussed in reports including Digital Commerce: 8 Trends & Opportunities, 25/26 and Supercharging Connectivity: Elevating In-Store Tech, big-box retailers and tech companies are streamlining shopping with wish list-guided omnichannel wayfinding, AI voice agents that call stores on a consumer’s behalf and life admin-minimising gift and grocery buying tools.

Responding to worries about AI damaging human creativity, brands rooted in craft or aligned with the creative industries are releasing campaigns pushing back against AI-generated content, celebrating particularly idiosyncratic creations and/or valorising human-made gifts grounded in nuanced relationships. See also #craftmas, below.

Gifting to pets at Christmas is not only on the rise but perceived by many consumers as their most joyful present purchase (see stats below). Key pet-orientated comms strategies, including those from non-pet brands, include dog-fronted TikTok absurdism, TV ad depictions of canines upending Christmas decorations and petfluencer social commerce storefronts.

Top festive aesthetics surfacing on social media indicate longer-lasting preoccupations: the viral traditionalist-championing #RalphLaurenChristmas, the rise of #craftmas amid a growing appetite for handcrafted creations, and the horror-infused festivities of #creepmas.