As cold weather and holiday PTO keep consumers at home, the holiday season becomes a high-impact moment for advertisers to reach highly receptive audiences. Some campaigns have been so successful they’ve entered our collective holiday lexicon. For many, the season doesn’t truly begin until the “Christmas Bells” Hershey’s Kiss ad airs or the M&M’s run into Santa.
Advertisers often lean into this tradition of repetition, with familiar staples like Toyotathon returning year after year. Others look to redefine the category altogether, as Coca-Cola did with its fully AI-generated holiday ad. To understand how top brands activated across screens, AdImpact tracked holiday broadcast and CTV advertising from November 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026, across several high-profile advertisers.
Will AI-Generated Ads Become a New Holiday Tradition?
AI-generated ads are hitting the airwaves, impacting both political and commercial advertisers. Last October, the Andrew Cuomo for Governor campaign unveiled an AI-generated ad that quickly caught people’s attention. Now, Coca-Cola is doubling down on AI-generated creative as well.
Coca-Cola shook the advertising world in 2024 by basing its holiday campaign that year around a fully AI-generated ad. From 11/1/2024-1/1/2025, Coca-Cola aired the “Holidays are Coming” AI-generated ad more than 13k times on broadcast, making up 60% of their total broadcast airings from that time span. Coca-Cola brought the ad back this year in a major way. From 11/1/2025-1/1/2026, the AI-generated ad aired 88K times on broadcast, making up 48% of their total broadcast airings during that period. The ad became a major player in Coca-Cola’s holiday ad campaign across CTV platforms as well, with both the :15s and :30s spots seeing a combined 251.9M impressions on CTV.
With AI-generated creative gaining traction during the most competitive advertising season of the year, the next frontier may be the Super Bowl. Svedka is set to make their Super Bowl debut with an ad created largely using AI—raising the question: will other brands follow? For that answer, stay tuned for AdImpact’s coverage of the Super Bowl.
Automakers Ensure a December to Remember
Do you celebrate Happy Honda Days, Toyotathon, or a December to Remember? Thanks to heavy CTV and linear advertising, these winter sales events from Honda, Toyota, and Lexus have become synonymous with the holiday season.
Lexus leaned into its “December to Remember” campaign more than any other automaker, with ads for the event accounting for 95% of its total broadcast airings from November 1, 2025 to January 1, 2026—far outpacing Honda (34%) and Toyota (30%). While Honda and Toyota spotlighted their winter sales alongside broader messaging, Lexus made its seasonal event the centerpiece of its holiday strategy.
SUVs dominated winter campaigns for Honda and Toyota. Honda focused on the CR-V, Pilot, and HR-V, while Toyota highlighted the RAV4, Tacoma, and Tundra. Lexus, meanwhile, blended nostalgia and modern luxury—pairing classic models like the LS 400 with contemporary sedans and SUVs.
These seasonal strategies extended beyond linear TV and into CTV. Across all CTV platforms, Lexus’s “December to Remember” campaign drove 405M impressions, while Toyota delivered over 250M and Honda generated more than 300M. Strong CTV impression delivery underscores why winter sales events remain a cornerstone of automakers’ holiday advertising strategies.
Familiar Toys and Mobile Games Take the Spotlight
The holiday season also presents the biggest opportunity for toy and video game advertisers to capture attention, appealing to both children and their parents. This year, advertisers focused heavily on parents through linear TV campaigns, concentrating spend around family-friendly and late-night programming such as Modern Family, Seinfeld, NBA games, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Holiday movies were another prime advertising target. Toy and video game brands aired more than 5K broadcast spots during seasonal favorites like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among others.
So which toys pursued the most aggressive broadcast advertising strategy? Unsurprisingly, the Hess Toy Truck, long a holiday staple, was the most advertised toy of the season on broadcast. Other top toy advertisers included LEGO, Fisher-Price, and maybe for the millennial parents: Chia Pet.
In the video game category, mobile titles dominated linear advertising during the holidays, accounting for all but one of the top five video game advertisers. Candy Crush, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Royal Match, Royal Kingdom, and June’s Journey were the most advertised video games from November 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026.
Classics Hold Strong as we Take a Step Towards the AI Future
The 2025 holiday season underscored how quickly advertising strategies are evolving. While some brands leaned into nostalgia and repetition, others pushed creative boundaries with AI-driven campaigns. As these approaches converge, the holidays remain a proving ground for what will shape advertising in the year ahead — and AdImpact will be there to help our customers navigate what’s next.