Around this time every year, retailers around the world apply their war paint and prepare themselves for the annual battle of the Christmas Adverts in an attempt to win the hearts (and wallets) of the nation. Now, being experts in eCommerce and all, we’re obviously kind of biased, but this year there are two that have caught our eye: Amazon Prime and eBay. For two very similar companies, they couldn’t be more different in their mission planning in this years’ battle.

Let’s start with Amazon Prime. If you haven’t see the Ad yet, watch it below. 
Mission: Sentiment

The year of 2016 has, to say the least, been turbulent. We don’t want to get political here, but unless you’ve been living in an igloo in the North Pole, you will know that there’s been a couple of major events that have rocked the world. Amidst the turbulence, Amazon’s Christmas Ad speaks the message that we all needed to hear: regardless of our political affiliation, religion, ethnicity or gender, there is always room for friendship.

Pulling at the heartstrings of your customers over the festive season is nothing new, but Amazon have gone above and beyond the usual nostalgic tug of Christmas advertising and touched on the very real emotion that the world is feeling. There’s no product names, no price tags, no real selling at all. We’re not going to pretend that the aim of this advertisement isn’t to boost sales, but we applaud Amazon on their ability to connect their brand through such a widely relevant sentiment without any direct promotion of their product or brand.

Up next is eBay’s ‘Survive the Disco’. Watch it below if you haven’t seen it yet.
Mission: Sales 

This is one for the millennials. The ‘Survive the Disco’ advert shows a string of heart-achingly awkward scenarios at the school Christmas disco made slightly more bearable by eBay’s selection of products. eBay are all about the hard sell this year, and whilst we watch (and cringe) as we try to remember whether we were Queen B or the no-game Gamer, the only message in this advert is that eBay’s product catalogue has something for everyone. An advert packed with products doesn’t usually do it for us, but eBay may have changed our minds. It’s funny in a ‘make it stop..’ kind of way and, despite the heavy promotion of products, it’s managed to avoid any garish selling techniques – impressive!

Whilst the battle of sentiment vs sales was an honourable one, and both Amazon and eBay put up a great fight, we can see only one winner. Amazon Prime have stolen our – and the rest of the nation’s – hearts this year, and have won our vote for best Christmas Ad of 2016.