In the 12 festive ads to have scored most highly on System1’s advertising testing platform, happiness is the dominant emotion, accounting for around 60% of responses from participants.

According to System1, the factors shared by this year’s top performing Christmas adverts are ‘a strong sense of place, compelling storytelling and inclusive casting’.

System1 tests Christmas adverts annually through its ‘Test Your Ad’ platform, measuring consumer emotions to predict commercial impact. Participants score ads on a 1.0-star to 5.9-star scale. Across the top 12 Christmas adverts, the average score was 4.6.

In its league table, System1 has ranked the commercials by star rating – their brand-building potential – and another score for short-term sales potential.

Amazon’s ‘Joy Ride’ takes first place in System1’s ranking, with a 5.9 star rating and an uplift of +3.1% compared with the retail category average.

Waitrose’s Christmas advert, ‘The Perfect Gift’, by Saatchi & Saatchi, and Coca-Cola’s ‘Holidays are Coming’ ranked in second and third place respectively.

Jon Evans, chief customer officer at System1, said: “This has been a record-breaking year. Brands are leaning into what works with emotion, memory and creativity that sticks.

“This isn’t luck; it’s research-led strategy paying off in plain sight. The bar is higher than ever and it’s exciting to imagine where it goes next."