Iceland praised after making decision to axe their Christmas advert

'Tis not quite the season to be jolly just yet, but 'tis the season to be inundated with everyone's Christmas adverts, as they try to convince you to buy your turkey from them.

Asda are showing off their new quality control employee Michael Bublé, Sainsbury's have Rick Astley on board, and Aldi have brought back their anthropomorphic carrot Kevin.

Obviously Coca-Cola have yet again rolled out the red-clad Santas, while some people got very angry at Marks & Spencer and John Lewis for their adverts.

The message of pretty much all of these adverts is 'buy our stuff' and they get increasingly elaborate and expensive with every passing year.

In the midst of supermarkets rushing to get their adverts out, there are some ads which are trying to highlight that not everybody's Christmas will be jolly and for many households it will be a difficult time.

Burak Bir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Among the supermarkets putting out their Christmas adverts, one is notably absent, and you won't see a festive ad from Iceland this year.

Their executive chairman Richard Walker told the Grocery Gazette that there would be no Christmas advert from them as they would instead be focusing on 'keeping prices low'.

He said: "As a business we were faced with a decision. Do we spend millions creating and sharing a TV advert or do we invest the money supporting our customers during the cost-of-living crisis?

"This was a no brainer for us. I am grateful that as a family-run company, we can make the decisions we believe are right for our business and our customers."

Walker later posted on social media to restate his belief that skipping the Christmas advert this year was a 'no-brainer', writing: "Rather than spend millions creating and sharing a TV ad, we chose to invest the money supporting our customers during the cost-of-living crisis. No-brainer."

Rather than being slated as a party-pooper, it appears to have been the right move, as his post explaining that Iceland wouldn't be doing a Christmas ad was followed by plenty of praise.

Iceland

People who were already shopping at Iceland likely didn't need a fancy ad on the telly to convince them, and some told the Iceland boss 'well done' for the decision. Though a few said they would miss Noddy Holder who appeared in the supermarket's previous advert.

One said it was 'definitely the right approach', while another said all the Christmas adverts 'must cost an absolute fortune' to put together.

"No advert will make me shop anywhere other than my usual supermarket," a third wrote, and it would be interesting to know what sort of impact the adverts have on the supermarket sales.

Would more people choose to shop at Aldi because Kevin the Carrot made a particularly good advert one year?

In 2018, Iceland had their Christmas advert highlighting the damage done by the palm oil industry scrapped.