The It's Nice That Podcast unwraps the art of the christmas advert

The It’s Nice That Podcast has begun over on Radio Wolfgang, a series that will evaluate popular creative works and assess why they’re so successful. In this first episode, It’s Nice That founders Will Hudson and Alex Bec unwrap the credentials of a distinctive christmas advert, questioning whether it’s “a psychological science or a creative dark art?”

In order to solve the mystery of why these adverts have us covered in goosebumps under our winter coats, Alex and Will invited two advertising experts onto the show to share their alternative insights.

The first, Patrick Fagan a consumer psychologist, shared his methodology into why audiences respond to particular christmas adverts on mass. Patrick explains that his job at Crowd Emotion is to “turn mind into money” evaluating the science that makes our hearts swell in order to buy more.

On the other side of the spectrum Daniel Fisher shares his instinctive knowledge as creator of the famous Monty the Penguin advert for John Lewis. By trade Daniel is a copywriter, creating ideas for brands with the aim “to try to do ideas that people will talk about.” Daniel explains, “We live in what we call an attention economy. If you’re going to take someone’s attention, you’ve got to make it worthwhile.”

Over Daniel’s career he has seen the advance of christmas advertising from his first job for McDonalds back in 2008. In conversation with Will and Alex, the writer describes how difficult it can be to create a Christmas advert at a time when everyone is enjoying pints after work in the sunshine.