Why shouldn’t it be Christmas all year long in advertising?

Let’s get something straight.

The best UK Christmas advertising isn’t just better than the rest of the year’s work. It’s proof of what this industry can do when it actually tries. And yet every December, we act shocked. “Can you believe how good that was?” Yes. Yes, I can. Because Christmas campaigns are filled with the very things we claim to value: emotional storytelling, cultural relevance, brilliant craft and true creative ambition.

So it begs the question: why does that magic have an expiration date when Santa heads back to the North Pole each year?

Every Christmas, brands pull out all the stops. And the results are breathtaking. John Lewis breaks our hearts. Aldi gets weird with animated root vegetables. Barbour brings back Wallace & Gromit. McDonald’s turns the Grinch into a snack-pushing national treasure. The work is cinematic, character-driven, full of wit and wonder – and, let’s not forget, effective.

But then comes January. The decorations come down (even if the lights typically hang around at the Ruby home) and the creative spark fades along with the emotional connections. It’s as if marketers collectively make a new year’s resolution to ditch the storytelling for short-term activations and QR codes, resulting in the kind content that brings out the ad blocker instinct in all of us.

The Christmas spending spree might be over and the budgets tighter, but truth is, consumers want that same level of ambition year-round. And businesses should strive for it, too: when shared as part of a story, facts and information are 20 times more likely to be remembered according to Jerome Bruner’s well-known research.

Campaign’s own survey found that nearly 60% of people in the UK wish ads were as good all year as they are at Christmas. And yet, across industries, we still hear the same tired excuses: “It’s not the right audience for emotional work.” “We don’t have a big enough budget.” “It’s just not what our brand does.”

In the US, the Super Bowl is our Christmas equivalent; the stage where all advertising – and particularly B2B – annually steps up to showcase its talents. This year GoDaddy brought in Walter Goggins for the Big Game and won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix for its efforts, while Squarespace memorably reinvented its origin story in a film co-starring Barry Keoghan and a donkey, in tribute to movie The Banshees of Inisherin.

Again – why don’t we do this all year round, year in year out? You want to see emotional resonance in action? Look at one of our industry’s most iconic campaigns from the last decade: Volvo Trucks’ ‘Epic Split.’ That wasn’t a Christmas ad. It wasn’t even selling to consumers. It was a product demo – delivered with cinematic brilliance, a killer nostalgic track from Enya, and Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits across two trucks. Functional? Yes. But also unforgettable. Surreal. Culturally resonant. JCVD = OMFG.

What made that work wasn’t the media plan. It was the idea. The courage to treat a truck commercial like a scene from a movie. The creative conviction to entertain and connect, not just educate and convert. Brands like Uber Eats, Ikea, Apple and KFC also show that it can be done all year round if you prioritise imagination over algorithms.

We talk a lot in this business about building “human-to-human connections.” But then we drown our audiences in boilerplate copy and calls-to-action like “Learn more, “Sign up,” or “Get your free trial.” You want connection? Try telling a story people actually care about. One that makes them laugh, cry or think. One that taps into shared cultural moments – whether that’s a holiday, a hit show or a deeply human insight that taps into a universal truth.

There’s no reason why every campaign shouldn’t aim for that. And no reason why the most human, culturally astute, emotionally charged advertising of the year should only come wrapped in tinsel.

Let’s stop treating creativity like seasonal décor.

Let’s stop acting like storytelling is something we have to justify to the CFO.

Let’s stop pretending there’s ever a time of year when our audiences don’t want to be moved.

Because if your brand has a story worth telling – and it does – then it’s your job to make sure people feel it.

Not just once a year, but all year long.

Michael Ruby is co-founder and CCO, Park & Battery