Saving Tasting Time

The story

Why it stays with you

Thatchers' first Christmas TV advert is a stop-motion Aardman short in which heavy snow cuts off the family cider farm on tasting day, so a puppet Martin Thatcher takes to a hot-air balloon to round up the tasting team. The idea, naturally, comes from Myrtle the dog.

Every batch of Thatchers cider is signed off at a Friday lunchtime tasting at Myrtle Farm in Somerset. In the advert, Christmas week brings snow deep enough to cut the farm off and scatter the tasting team across the countryside, and the ritual looks lost.

Myrtle the dog has other ideas. A nudge towards the hot-air balloon sends a puppet Martin Thatcher, the fourth generation to run the farm, up over the snow to collect the team one by one and get everyone back in time, so that nothing leaves the farm untasted.

It is Thatchers' first ever Christmas television advert and the biggest campaign the company has run. Aardman made it in Bristol, mixing stop-motion puppetry with CGI: a miniature snow-covered farm, hand-stitched costumes, and a freshly flocked Myrtle with a darker nose. Bray Leino, the brand's agency of more than fifteen years, developed the idea. Aardman and Thatchers had already worked together on the 2025 Juicy Apple campaign.

The advert went on air on Monday 2 November 2026 across ITV, Sky, Netflix and Channel 4, with online, on-demand and in-store activity alongside. System1 pre-tested it at 5.9 stars, the top of its scale.

For a film site the interest is the craft. This is proper Aardman stop-motion in an ad break, in the same week as John Lewis, and it sits comfortably beside the studio's Christmas work for Barbour.

Drink responsibly.

First shown 2 November 2026. Playback checked 3 November 2026. Video availability may change.