How the Grinch Stole Christmas 2025

Every brand
Down in Brandville
Likes Christmas a lot…

And the Grinch
Festive marketing was broadcast
Non STOP

The Grinch hated Christmas! But this whole Christmas season
Was all over the ads. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be the economy wasn’t too great
It could be our politics boiling with hate
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May be that our attention is two sizes too small.


Yes, this year the jolly man in red seems to have been replaced by the hairy man of green when it comes to Christmas marketing. In journalism school, I was taught that three occurrences makes a trend and, well, read ‘em and weep. The Grinch has popped up in a British ad for the supermarket Asda by Lucky Generals (where he’s a tight-fisted dad keeping a lid on festive spending in the face of the cost of living squeeze); he jumped across the pond to the USA where he’s being played by Fallout’s favourite ghoul Walton Goggins for Walmart in a campaign from Fallon, and finally he’s headed down under where he’s treating Australians to a ‘Grinch Boy Summer’ with McDonald's and Wieden+Kennedy Sydney.

Why? Well, I guess the most obvious and therefore boring reason is that the Jim Carrey Grinch film turns 25 this year and a whole cohort of borderline gen z-millennial creatives have come of age and are imposing their own distorted view of what constitutes a ‘Christmas classic’ on the rest of us.

But maybe there’s more to it than that. We've been slogging on since covid. There’s a job crunch on in the UK and the US while inflationary pressures don’t seem to be easing up as consumers are finding they need to stretch the pennies in their pockets ever further. Now add the grimly chaotic news cycle and social media morass that sucks our attention and drains our souls, and maybe there’s only so much cosy make believe consumers can tolerate.

Even brands that haven’t literally cast the Grinch are channelling his pre-Cindy-Lou energy. There’s Bryan Cranston’s ‘Cranpus’ for Ocean Spray, the awkward friction of Tesco, and Peta’s ‘Christmassacre’. Bad tidings abound!

Marketers are also being pummelled with the messaging that familiarity and ‘fluent devices’ are the key to Christmas success. With attention short, the reasoning goes, brands need to hook viewers with something recognisable that can cut a shortcut to their emotional centres. Yet Only there is only a finite amount of festive IP going round. Some brands have built up their own cast of characters to draw from – ALDI UK’s Kevin the Carrot – and it seems that others like Sainsbury’s and Boots are possibly laying the foundations for new characters to return year after year.

I’m not grouching on the Grinch. In fact, with this year’s Christmas ad window being so-o-o-o-o drawn out, I’m starting to come around to his way of thinking. It’s also not a ding on any individual agency or brand, in fact they look like they’re having a lot of fun with their in-demand star. But that image – that the Grinch really has stolen Christmas advertising –feels uncomfortably apt for where (and who) we are right now. If you’re feeling Jungian, maybe it’s an expression of our collective unconscious, but whatever it is, it’s also testament to advertising’s power as a mirror to society.

Of course, in the original, the Grinch has a change (and possibly fatal enlargement) of heart. Maybe next year we’ll cheer up.