29 of My Favourite Christmas PR Campaigns

Christmas PR campaigns are not easy. Seemingly every single brand wants to run a festive themed story during the holidays, which only results in the level of competition ramping up.

Getting cut through during this busy period is difficult. But when brands nail it with Christmas stories, they're bloody great aren't they? ☃️

As the festive season draws to a close, and PRs are either in a frantic panic to get everything wrapped up before the Christmas break, or are well and truly in "let's circle back after the holidays" mode, I've been sharing some of my favourite Christmas PR campaigns in The Digital PR Observer Newsletter.

In this post, I've shared 28 of my favourite Christmas PR campaigns that brands have created over the years.

Christmas Digital PR Campaigns

1️⃣ Sustainable Christmas: How to Grow Your Own Christmas Dinner by 100Green

📊 140 RDs DR 50+

The festive season always bring a lot of creative Christmasy campaigns, but not that many imo really nail that balance between creativity and an idea perfect to that specific brand. This campaign from last year by 100Green does just that. Their survey found that 61% of people in the UK would like to try to have a more eco-friendly Christmas this year, so they created this really well put together guide on to grow all the ingredients you need for your Christmas dinner.

This is also a great example of where only looking at the number of referring domains a campaign earned without any extra analysis can be misleading. 140 RDs DR 50+ sounds amazing but when you dig into the sites, you realise they’re all from a massive Newsquest syndication. Which is still bloody amazing, but from an SEO pov, there’s an important distinction to be made between 140 unique linking domains, vs 140 RDs, 139 of which are syndications, and won’t be passing the same level of SEO value that 139 unique links would be.

From what I can see, the campaign only earned links in the lead up to Christmas last year. This could be a great example of revisiting old campaigns, especially seasonal ones attached to an event like Christmas. The calendar of when to plant your different Veg could also provide some more outreach angles throughout the year.

2️⃣ Christmas Tinner by GAME

📊 36 RDs DR 50+

Most of you have probably seen the Christmas Tinner campaign before. It’s a great example of a campaign that everyone has an opinion on and gets people talking. The term “viral” gets overused these days but I think it’s a fair description of the Christmas Tinner.

The backstory of the campaign I think is really interesting for those unaware of it, as it’s the perfect example of taking a campaign that was a hit a number of years prior, and giving a classic idea new life. You can read about the original origins of the campaign in this post by Mark Perkins, and then Rise at Seven’s case study on how they revived it to go viral again. Unfortunately the page all the links were built to is now just a 404 page and GAME have no visibility on the SERP for “christmas tinner” 🫠

3️⃣ The Most Dangerous Christmas Songs To Drive To by Chill Insurance

📊 12 RDs DR 50+

I love this creative spin on Christmas songs by linking it to which might be the most distracting while you’re driving. Creative data pieces don’t always have to be massive analysis projects, and this is a relatively simple research piece.

There isn’t a huge amount of popular Christmas songs when you really dig into it (which I have in the past) and all this campaign did was get the BPM for each song. Simple in execution but the creativity reaps its rewards.

4️⃣ Ultimate Christmas Movies by musicMagpie

📊 12 RDs DR 50+

Not every campaign needs to be a huge piece of data-led research, but god the ones that are and that are done well are really cool! In this campaign, Music Magpie analysed 20 famous Christmas movies and ranked them against 25 metrics to determine which was the perfect Christmas movie.

You have your usual ranking metrics like box office performance and audience scores, and of course the classic search volumes! But what I really like is how they counted the number of Christmasy scenes in each movie, based on things such as the number of scenes with reindeers, Santa, snow, presents, elves, etc, which could probably be a campaign to itself just based on the number of Christmasy references during each movie.

5️⃣ Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie by Stephen Follows

📊 31 RDs DR 50+

If you’re not aware of the Stephen Follows blog, I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you’re into movies and data. If you enjoy this one then you’ll find a lot more fun data-led insights posts similar to this on his blog. This one is a very detailed and very fun deep dive into the age old question - “Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?”.

Not a Digital PR campaign as such, but further proof that great content will get shared, and that means it will earn backlinks. 83 total RDs, 31 DR 50+.

6️⃣ The Job Of Hosting Christmas by Wethrift

📊 50 RDs DR 50+

I love this concept that Wethrift came up with in 2021 to work out how much the costs of each aspect of hosting Christmas would add up to if they were paid positions. They looked at different jobs such as doing all the cooking, cleaning, buying presents, wrapping points, and more, and then added up the cost of each job, finding out that the job of hosting Christmas would earn you £885 if it were a paid position. Lovely bit of creativity.

7️⃣ The Christmas Tree Bauble Calculator by Admiral

📊 5 RDs DR 50+

A classic campaign from way back in 2018 by Admiral. I love the simplicity of the landing page here, effortlessly showing you how many baubles you need for your Christmas tree. Simple and concise, and an idea that is genuinely useful for people.

It also has this beast of a backlink from Cardiff University, which is such a great example of how to earn links from University sites. To work out the formula for their bauble calculator, they worked with a lecturer from Cardiff Uni’s School of Mathematics. A lot of experts, in particular Academics, like to share how they’ve used their expertise outside of their day job, which can lead to amazing extra links like this one on the Dr. Matthew Lettington’s Biography tab.

8️⃣ Christmas Tree Decoration Calculator by Christmas Tree World

📊 20 RDs DR 50+

Yes this is extremely similar to the campaign above. But I love this as an example of how just because a concept has been done before, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done again in the future, provided it’s not a carbon copy rip off of the original idea of course.

What I also love about this campaign is that it’s been re-outreached every year since 2021, based on what I can see via Ahrefs. Which is something I mentioned a few times in last week’s issue. Seasonal campaigns are generally seen as Reactive campaigns but they can be evergreen too! Content that was useful and earned links last Christmas, is very likely still going to be helpful and worthy of coverage again in future years.

9️⃣ Which European city uses the most energy to light up for Christmas? by Uswitch

📊 7 RDs DR 50+

Another Uswitch classic. The methodology for how they worked out how much energy each city uses on their Christmas lights is so clever. They used satellite data from NASA’s Black Marble night-time lights dataset to work out the change from October to December in each city. There’s a lot of other aspects of it too that are worth reading cause it’s really clever and makes for a fascinating bit of content.

🔟 Christmas Lingerie Tester by Pour Moi

📊 10 RDs DR 50+

How do you do a Christmas campaign as a lingerie brand while still staying on brand? This is how! I know Dream Job campaigns can be divisive but when they allow you to tell a fun story, they can be a great link building asset.

I’m not always a fan of redirecting old campaign pages to commercial pages, but this one definitely makes sense in terms of being redirected to a similar page.

1️⃣1️⃣ The Cost of Christmas Past & Present by musicMagpie

📊 12 RDs DR 50+

Such a cool nostalgic trip down memory lane. This campaign by musicMagpie lists the most popular Christmas present every year from 1970 to 2020, and looks at how much presents from previous years would cost in modern money, as well as what percentage of our income we spend on Christmas presents each year. A really cool data led piece full of nostalgic memories!

1️⃣2️⃣ Bounty bars removed from Celebrations tubs in trial by Mars Wrigley

I absolutely loved this PR stunt by Mars Wrigley to “remove” Bounty bars from Celebrations boxes. Everyone has that one chocolate that they hate in selection boxes, and the Bounty bar is the epitome of the “give these to the one weirdo who likes them”. They’re divisive and everyone has an opinion on them, the perfect recipe for a PR stunt!

The campaign itself was really clever in its execution, cause of course they weren’t really removed. It was part of a trial at a limited number of supermarket stores. But none of that really matters when it comes to creating a PR campaign like this, which for Celebrations, is all about getting people talking about their product and creating a favourable brand impression during the Christmas shopping season.

Celebrations know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to Bounty related PR stunts. They also regularly do limited edition Bounty only Celebrations tubs, and this year, very cheekily made the first three days of their Advent Calendar, all Bounty bars.

1️⃣3️⃣ £750 Christmas Crackers by Harrods

A really underrated campaign format that I often see work well is taking a product and creating a crazy expensive version of it as a PR stunt. Obviously it has to be for the right brand, but Harrods definitely fits into that criteria. Here they created Christmas Crackers that cost £750. Bit out of my price range. For many brands, doing this during a cost of living crisis would seem a bad move, but if anything, it feels like it makes it even more of a story, and Harrods are a brand that can get away with something like this.

In my Digital PR 2025 Wishlist post, I talked about how I’d love to see more creativity from Digital PR campaigns next year. I think this is a great example of creative PR that doesn’t have to be a massive budget campaign with big OOH activations. The campaign got amazing coverage on sites like TimeOut, The Mirror, Evening Standard, and more. It is however a classic example of how creative PR campaigns like this can leave money on the table without that SEO focus to also earn backlinks from all of that coverage.

1️⃣4️⃣ Sleigh Another Day - East 17 Doorstep Tour by Ring

📊 16 RDs DR 50+

God I love this. Ring (the company that makes doorbell cameras) gave people the chance to have East 17 turn up and sing on their doorstep, in a campaign magnificently titled “Sleigh Another Day”. When I say I want to see more Digital PR teams taking risks with their creativity, what I really mean is I want to see more silly concepts like this.

Unfortunately though for Ring, they built all the links to the booking form on DesignMyNight’s website rather than their own. Ooops! Could their SEO team could take the pain?

1️⃣5️⃣ The 3 Way Cracker by HANX

📊 0 RDs DR 50+

I love the creativity of this campaign by HANX, creating a 3 way Christmas Cracker as a cheeky creative take on polyamorous relationships. If you saw the campaign at the time you might remember it as being one that did really well and got loads of coverage.

Except, it kinda didn’t. No backlinks to the campaign page and no traditional press coverage from what I can find. But it got loads of coverage on sites like Campaign Live and Creative Brief. A good reminder that just because you see a cool creative concept that gets loads of shares on LinkedIn, doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate into a lot of PR coverage on sites that the brand’s audience are reading.

1️⃣6️⃣ Kids share their ideas on how Santa delivers presents by Osmo

I'm a bit sucker for campaigns with UGC content from kids. They don’t always work all that great but from what I can see this one by Osmo got some nice coverage back in 2021. No landing page unfortunately so it's difficult to see exactly how much.

Here, Osmo surveyed 750 children ged 6-11 who still believe in Santa to get insights on how kids think Santa pulls off the remarkably under-appreciated task of delivering presents to everyone in just one night. The top theory apparently is that he has a special key that unlocks every door in the world. Solid theory, even if it doesn't make the whole chimney nonsense feel a bit unnecessary 🎅

1️⃣7️⃣ Christmas Dinner Gin by Nelson's Distillery & School

One of my favourite Christmas PR tactics is a clever bit of Product PR. Here, Nelson's created a special Gin that tastes like Christmas Dinner. Sounds pretty rank tbh, but that element of intrigue/disgust makes for the start of a successful PR story, landing coverage on Metro, Mirror, and some regionals.

1️⃣8️⃣ Cheese and Wine Taster Dream Job by Cartwright and Butler

📊 7 RDs DR 50+

Sometimes PR is pretty simple and all you have to do is pay people to dine on cheese and wine to get some great coverage. Dream Jobs like this almost feel like a bit of a cheat code, but they do get (or got?) results!

1️⃣9️⃣ Santa Tutors by Exam Paper Plus

Sometimes I see Digital PRs fall into the trap of thinking that a piece of data about search trends is enough to create a newsworthy story. It usually isn't, unless it's a SUPER interesting Google Trends observation that can be tied into a current news story.

However, using that data to launch a creative concept can be really effective, and this is a great festive example of it by Exam Paper Plus, who launched "Santa School", with tutors dressed as Santa to "take your child on a magical traditional-style learning course of Christmas".

2️⃣0️⃣ Brit's Worst Christmas Icks by Thortful

📊 2 RDs DR 50+

So this campaign isn't showing too much in terms of results in Ahrefs, but I do really like it as a good example of a Survey format. Some Surveys can be a bit dull and there's always the risk of spending a lot of money to not get any interesting insights. Icks often seems to be a good topic for a Survey format though as it hits on those annoying and relatable emotions that Journos are looking for in their stories.

2️⃣1️⃣ Make Believe Christmas Mortgages by money.co.uk

📊 1 RDs DR 50+

This is a format that I really love for Property brands where they valuate the cost of make believe houses from famous Movies and TV Shows. This one by money.co.uk worked out the cost of a mortgage for famous homes from Christmas Movies, finding that the most expensive would be the New York apartment in Elf. Only got one link according to Ahrefs, but a follow link on a DR 85 site like ScreenRant is a pretty great link.

2️⃣2️⃣ The most stressful places for Christmas shopping by Verve Search

I love a good sentiment analysis bit of research using Social Media data. This one by Verve Search is an excellent piece of research that analysed more than half a million tweets to reveal the most stressful cities for Christmas shopping using TensiStrength. Big fan of the simplicity of the data vis on the landing page too.

2️⃣3️⃣ Which UK locations are the most likely to spot Santa this year? by Outdoor Toys

📊 1 RDs DR 50+

This is a really cool example of using data from formal sources such as climate data and light pollution, and turning it into a fun festive story. Here, Outdoor Toys revealed which places in the UK are most likely to spot Santa's sleigh in the sky based on the average number of rainy days in December, and the amount of light pollution.

The campaign also analysed which places had the most Santa's Grotto's per 100,000 people to reveal where kids are most likely to get to meet Santa in person. Interestingly, Reading ranks in the top three for both. The Grotto's ranking is another good example of using credible data such as event listings and turning it into a softer story that works really well from an emotional storytelling point of view. It's also a great example of the importance of weighting your results, in this case by the population of the city/town, to produce more interesting results, and avoiding the predictable story of London having the most of anything because it's the biggest city.

2️⃣4️⃣ Wasteful Brits throw away £23bn worth of Christmas lights by Warninks Advocaat

This is a good example of a festive campaign that takes a basic survey and then builds on it to create a much more well rounded story. Warninks Advocaat polled Brits to reveal how much the average person spends on Christmas lights, and how many lights are chucked away each year. Quite basic if you just stop here.

They've then worked out the average spend per person and multiplied it by the population of Great Britain to reveal the total cost of the whole nation. This is a great data analysis trick that takes literally just seconds to do but makes a huge difference to the impact of your story. The average person spends £429 on Christmas lights - sounds kinda big. £23 billion across the whole population? Ok that sounds massive and has a much bigger impact on how both the Journalist and their readers will react when they see that figure in a headline.

But they haven't stopped there. They've also gone a step further and launched a nice little stunt based on the results of the survey, launching an initiative to get Brits to “swap and recycle” their Christmas lights. Granted, it's only available in a small number of places, and the connection to a liqueur brand feels a tad forced, but it's a really good example of how to keep building on the presentation of survey results to go from a nice data point to a more fleshed out PR campaign.

2️⃣5️⃣ Europe’s Hidden Gems for a White Christmas by DFDS

📊 17 RDs DR 50+

This next campaign is a nice twist on the traditional "best places for..." type campaigns. DFDS revealed the hidden gem destinations in Europe that are most likely to have a white Christmas. To reveal the top destinations they used historical weather data to analyse which destinations had the highest probability of snowfall on Christmas Day, along with the longer winter period.

This is another example of how pushing forward one extra step with your data and storytelling can help to create more unique and therefore more interesting headlines. The cities most likely to have snow on Christmas Day is a good campaign in itself. It would get covered, but there's also a good chance another brand might also have the same idea and beat you to the punch. Instead, DFDS then looked at search volume data for the top cities to reveal which had low search volume for travel related terms, taking the list from the top cities, to the best hidden gem destinations. The unique angle paid off, with links on sites such as TimeOut, Travel + Leisure, and The Manual.

2️⃣6️⃣ Spike in online dating as 86% were lonely at Christmas by Pure Dating App

I’m not sure if the headline used by everyone's favourite Journalist Neil Shaw is a tad misleading as it suggests that the app saw an increase of some kind but there's no actual mention of it in the article. If it is a Reactive based on a spike in sign ups to the app that's a really cool idea, or one another dating app could look out for this year.

Even if it's not, it's still a clever way of earning coverage for a Christmas campaign in the New Year, evidence of some of Amelia Evans' advice in her post on How to get the most out of your Christmas PR campaigns. The stats come from a survey campaign launched by Pure Dating App which is a cool deep dive into sex and relationships during the festive season. Here, they've revisited their stat on single people feeling lonely over the Christmas season to produce a nice little bit of New Year coverage, all from what would have been a relatively simple pivot to reframe an existing piece of content by changing the wording of a sentence here and there in a press release.

2️⃣7️⃣ The UK Airports Most Likely to Cancel Your Flight Home for Christmas by Civil Aviation Authority

This is another cool example of how to turn non-festive data into a festive story. It's not totally clear whether the campaign is by the Civil Aviation Authority or if it's a brand using their data that hasn't been mentioned in the article. Interestingly, there's a note at the bottom of the article that mentions the article originally "incorrectly stated that Leeds Bradford Airport was the riskiest to fly from with the most cancellations, as a result of data from the CAA being inaccurately interpreted by a third party", which explains why the url has Leeds Bradford in rather than Aberdeen. Ooops! This is one of the reasons why I feel strongly about data-led campaigns having on-site content from the brand that produced the story as publications won't cover everything about the campaign, particularly relating to the methodology.

The data analysis here however is a nice creative story that takes a standard data point around cancelled flights and turns it into an actual PR story by reframing the data as the riskiest airports for flying home at Christmas. The airports with the most cancelled flights? A good data point and a nice PR story. The airports most likely to cancel your flight home for Christmas? Now we have not just a good data point but a more relatable storytelling plot that creates a headline which packs more of a punch!

2️⃣8️⃣ How much Christmas Songs can earn in royalties by Prezzybox

I love a royalties data campaigns, as you'll see from the below example, and this is a very old but very productive example of how well data campaigns that tap into pop culture can perform. Way back in 2013, Prezzybox researched how much popular Christmas songs could be earning prior to the digital streaming era through royalties from mediums like radio, television, jukebox and shop plays as well as compilation album sales. Their campaign revealed that Slade's ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ would be looking at £512,000 each year, and over £300k each for The Pogues, Mariah Carey, and Wham!

Thanks to Andy Barr for suggesting this very worth inclusion to the round up. Andy said "I honestly think that pound for pound, it is the strongest Christmas based link-building campaign I ever did see.", which is one heck of a compliment from such an old fart within the industry.

Sam Higgins who worked on the campaign also added his own bit of insight in the thread - "Can 100% vouch for the huge ROI of this campaign... Zak and I came up with a very scientific (we thought) way of calculating what royalties might be paid on these festive tunes based on their streams, multiplied by what we thought was a fair weighting for the artists reach, and anything else we could get our hands on. A nice design and a javascript counter later and we were away - hundreds of backlinks, it even got referenced on a BBC R2 breakfast show. Noddy still wants to know where all his royalties are."

2️⃣9️⃣ How much Christmas Songs make on Spotify each year by “Nofollow Designs”

I wanted to add a bonus one to this round up of Christmas campaigns. This is actually one that I did myself back in 2020 for a totally made up brand called “Nofollow Designs” (lolololol), analysing how much Christmas songs make each year on Spotify. And it got covered on Variety! Still one of my favourite links that I’ve ever built.

The point of why I wanted to share this one outside of a little humble brag, is that literally any brand can get great PR coverage and backlinks, as long as they have an interesting story to share. Even if the brand is a made up one and the website looks absolutely god awful.