Mid-November and it’s little more than a week since stores were festooned with vampire costumes and we’d all been merrily sending a week’s wages up in multicoloured smoke.

Mid-November and it’s little more than a week since stores were festooned with vampire costumes and we’d all been merrily sending a week’s wages up in multicoloured smoke.

Now Santa’s on his way and retailers are busy keeping pace with what has become a highly compressed marketing calendar at this time of year.

No sooner have we got over the shock of the end of British Summer Time than the pre-Christmas TV campaigns begin. These are now almost as much of a holiday institution as mince pies and family arguments.

Many will affectionately remember the ‘Wonder of Woolies’ Christmas ads that were once cornerstones of the festive ad breaks, now sadly naught but a quaint Dickensian footnote in marketing folklore. These days yuletide TV fare comes in roughly three flavours, each with a distinct aftertaste of cheese.

There’s the straightforward money-saving approach, spearheaded by the big supermarkets such as Asda and Iceland, with Lidl and Aldi bringing up the rear this year.

Then there’s the gently humorous genre, which this time round has been competently demonstrated by Argos and its amusing gifts for Santa theme. I suspect Morrisons hopes Ant and Dec might gain it an honourable mention, assuming we all overlook the implied imminent gingerbread manslaughter at the end.

Finally there are those ads that only include merchandise obliquely, preferring to showcase it as part of the story, if at all. Originally pioneered by Marks & Spencer, John Lewis has this year taken the ‘more plot than product’ idea to a new level in what appears to be a bizarre chimera of Watership Down and Yogi Bear.

Meanwhile, Tesco has eschewed its value message in favour of a rather unimaginative example of the nostalgic montage.

But, whatever your preference in Chrimbo promos, we should all be glad to see them. We each benefit as they inspire consumers to start their gift buying sooner rather than later. For that reason I’m raising a glass of mulled wine and wishing all those stores, and you all, a very merry Christmas - every one.

  • Ian Middleton, Managing director and co-founder, Argenteus