Asda’s 2018 Christmas ad

This ad is for Asda, the UK’s third-largest supermarket chain. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the USA’s Walmart, though supposedly more independent than other supermarket chains owned by Walmart. At the moment, there’s a proposal for a merger of Asda and Sainsbury’s which would control about 30% of the UK’s grocery market.

The ad, “Bring Christmas Home”, is energetic, full of fun, uses actual Christmas music, and did I mention it’s energetic? One question, though: Isn’t that Christmas tree being ridden backwards?

The company has a bunch of product-specific ads on their YouTube Channel, all using, if only obliquely, their theme for the year. It’s worth noting that UK supermarkets carry a lot of non-food merchandise, and the related ads on YouTube are for those products.

This is the first year I’ve included ads for all of he UK’s largest supermarkets—though, of course, they sell more than food. I was actually inspired to do that when I was looking up information on the chains; that’s not the first time that one thing on the Internet has led to another, but that doesn’t usually inspire a series of posts. First time for everything.