Ginny Marvin on December 23, 2014

 

Nintendo won the holidays according to television and video analytics firm Ace Metrix. The gaming company’s humorous, family-friendly “Dad Loses” ad scored 23.2 percent above the norm for other ads in its category.. Ebates.com’s savings-conscious “Paid To Shop” ad was the runner up and Mazda’s heart-tugging inspirational ad, “Braeden’s Story”, came in a close third. The company surveyed more than 500 TV viewers to rate holiday themed ads that aired between September 1 and December 15, asking them to score the ads on creative attributes such as persuasion, likeability, information, attention, change, relevance, desire and watchability. Retail, not surprisingly, dominated the holiday list with eight of the top 15 ads. Four of the top 15 most effective ads succeeded with humor. Amazon’s “Rom-Coms” ad for Fire TV featuring football commentators Jimmy Johnson and Curt Menefee struck the laugh chord and came in at number four. Nearly half of holiday ads featured a special offer — four of those made it into the top 15. Heartfelt and cause-related stories were also effective this season. Walmart earned two spots on the list with “Surprise” (a philanthropic-focused ad) at number five and “Unbeatable Prices” at number 12. All of the ads are available for viewing here.