The Most Viewed Christmas Ad Campaign Of 2015

The holidays mean many different things for many different people. For some, it’s about spending time with family. For others, it’s about seeing how much food can be eaten, and how many gifts can be opened. For companies, it’s about winning over consumers with holiday-themed commercial campaigns. So far this year, there have been plenty of ads vying for shoppers’ attention, and it’s perhaps non-shocking to find out that the most successful campaign of all comes from Walmart, which utilized Craig Robinson’s golden vocal cords to reach the masses.

Walmart’s “As Sung by Craig Robinson” commercials, in which the former Office star plays the keyboard and sings to people about deals and holiday policies, have been crushing almost everything beneath them on their way to becoming part of the most-viewed holiday campaign of 2015. According to RetailDive, analytics firm Visible Measure reports over 39.8 million viewers have witnessed the magic of Robinson singing about Same Day Pick-Up, holiday gift recommendations, and more since the campaign started up at the beginning of November. And those stats aren’t up-to-the-minute, so I’d imagine that number will be quite a bit higher now.

Now, to be fair, there are quite a few of these “As Sung by Craig Robinson” commercials out there, so that total number of views is spread out over a dozen or so videos. Does that take away from the victory? Nope, but it’s worth mentioning. And in any case, the ad seen below was watched well over 13 million times on its own, which almost gets it into the Top 10 by itself. Check out why people are all about that humorous credit card information.

All the Walmart lovers and haters out there will certainly love and hate to find out that this campaign wasn’t even Walmart’s only entry on the chart. The super successful retailer also landed in the #5 slot for its more heartwarming “Christmas 2015” push, and also at #7 for a series of how-to videos offering advice on making holiday get-togethers memorable. Maybe they’d have both landed higher if Craig Robinson was the one telling stories about kids and teaching people how to add more flavor to their parties.

Thankfully, there are other companies whose holiday ads were embraced by everyone. Taking the second-place slot is “Battle for Christmas Morning,” the Star Wars-centered commercial from Duracell that featured C-3PO, R2-D2, Stormtroopers, lightsabers and more; it has also been watched by over 39 million people. The list is rounded out by ads from Samsung, Ziploc, Target, Toys ‘R’ Us, and AT&T. The outlier in this bunch is the Mormon.org spot “A Savior is Born,” which has been watched over 17 million times.

Now that all that has been settled, who wants to come with me to Walmart? Anyone? No one?

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native, and is often asked why he doesn't sound like that's the case. His love for his wife and daughters is almost equaled by his love of gasp-for-breath laughter and gasp-for-breath horror. A lifetime spent in the vicinity of a television screen led to his current dream job, as well as his knowledge of too many TV themes and ad jingles.