Has anybody seen Kevin? How brands can extend Christmas through social

Christmas is typically a bad time to be a carrot. If you avoid getting chopped up and served with dinner, you still have to survive being left out for hungry reindeer on Christmas Eve.

That is unless you are Kevin the Carrot. Around November, the orange-coloured-root emerges from his annual hibernation to rapturous reception. Joined by his pals Ebanana Scrooge and Marcus Radishford, the global superstar carrot returned to the big screen this year to headline in Aldi’s latest big budget Christmas ad spot.

Christmas comes and goes. The lights will dim. And, come January, Kevin will have disappeared from the limelight entirely. But does it have to be this way?

Fame, fans and fortune. For Kevin, it’s just another year in the life of a one-of-your-five-a-day rockstar. But Christmas comes and goes. The lights will dim. And, come January, Kevin will have disappeared from the limelight entirely.

But does it have to be this way? Are our cast of Christmas characters, much like Santa himself, destined to only appear once a year? Or is there a future where Kevin and friends can frolic all year round?

Above: Kevin the Carrot, the star of Aldi's festive spots, need not only be brought to life at Christmas.

Extending the cheer

Christmas TV ads are great. They are a hallmark moment of the year, and one of the few occasions where consumers actively and intentionally engage with advertising.

With the whole world watching and waiting, brands tend to pursue a one-size-fits-all approach, taking the big budget ad spot and chopping it up across all channels to see how it lands with the masses. This means that characters like Kevin will explode into consumers' lives with a bang, before being quietly ushered out the back door once January arrives.

How can [advertisers] sustain the thunderclap that their ad spots arrive with?

This is a key challenge for advertisers. How can they sustain the thunderclap that their ad spots arrive with? And how can they ensure that consumers are engaging with and absorbing the message, as opposed to just contrasting and comparing it with the next ad on TV? 

Brands need to enrich the conversation. Christmas advertising - like any creative output - can quickly move from eye-catching to eye-rolling. But this can be changed when an ad evolves from something which is spoken about, to becoming something that speaks directly to you.

Above: How can a brand like Coca-Cola leverage their classic ad and twist it to speak specifically to sports audiences or craft communities on social?

The art of conversation

Christmas is a time where consumers are open to communications from brands, and so is the opportune time to start a conversation. Social channels are a natural fit for these conversations. On social, engagement happens two ways and is more nuanced and, equally, audiences expect interactions to be tailored to their interests. But these expectations offer opportunities for brands to reach specific subcultures and communities with unique, creative executions.

Brands need to ask: what is the creative truth of our work? Who does it speak to?

Achieving engagement on social media requires more than just cutting up a TV spot and putting some spend behind it online. Brands need to ask: what is the creative truth of our work? Who does it speak to? How can a brand like Coca-Cola leverage their classic ad spot and twist it to speak specifically to sports audiences or craft communities on social?

The first step is to recognise that social platforms operate distinctively. The type of content that succeeds on Instagram is different to what works on TikTok or Twitter. To get the best results, brands need to think social first. This is both in the way they approach platforms, ensuring all content is fit for the USP of the platform it is designed for, but also in regards to prioritising types of media - so not just jumping to TV first. 

At the very least, social executions should be viewed side-by-side with a TV campaign rather than as an extra. Give audiences more content that compliments the ad, and make the campaign feel bigger and more personal.