A Christmas advert has very little time to introduce a character. Borrowing someone we already recognise lets it get straight to the joke.
Asda gives Buddy the Elf a supermarket shift. IRN-BRU sends a familiar snowman on a less gentle adventure. Aldi discovers that a carrot called Kevin is rather well cast in Home Alone. Each offers the pleasure of recognising a story and then seeing what happens when it enters an unexpected world.
But those connections are not all the same. Sometimes an advert uses actual film footage. Sometimes it redraws a character, reshapes a plot or borrows the atmosphere of a whole genre. Spotting the difference makes these short films more enjoyable, and gives you a useful way to choose what to watch next.
Five ways into a festive film night
| Advert | Connection | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Asda, Have Your Elf a Merry Christmas, 2022 | Licensed footage from Elf | An existing performance fitted into a new setting |
| IRN-BRU, Snowman campaign, from 2006 | A hand-drawn parody of The Snowman | A familiar visual world with a different comic tone |
| Aldi, Kevin’s Home Alone adventure, 2022 | A reference to Home Alone | A recognisable premise recast around Kevin |
| Aldi, A Christmas Carrot, 2021 | Shared literary source: A Christmas Carol | Dickens’ transformation story beneath the food puns |
| Waitrose, The Perfect Gift, 2025 | Romantic comedy traditions | Familiar genre expectations in a new story |
Think of these as different viewing pleasures rather than a ranking. The most technically elaborate connection is not automatically the funniest, and a direct film reference is not essential to making an advert feel cinematic.
Buddy the Elf goes to work at Asda
Asda’s 2022 campaign, Have Your Elf a Merry Christmas, gives Buddy a trial shift. His enthusiasm for Christmas is a promising quality in a seasonal recruit; his approach to ordinary workplace behaviour makes things rather more complicated.
Asda’s campaign announcement confirms the partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products and the use of licensed original footage. The ninety-second advert combines that material with newly filmed scenes.
One neatly adapted joke replaces the film’s New York traffic with shopping trolleys. The setting changes, while the character’s relationship with the world stays recognisable.
The clever part happens between the shots. Framestore’s production account explains how the team analysed the original footage, extracted Buddy and planned the new material around his existing performance. Camera positions, lighting and the image’s texture had to work together. Digital footage needed to sit convincingly alongside material originally shot on 35mm film.
That is a lovely thing to consider on a second viewing. An actor in a newly shot scene can move in response to the set. Here, the creative team had to build a new encounter around a performance that already existed.
The appeal goes beyond recognising a costume. Buddy’s optimism changes the meaning of the supermarket around him. A place of routine becomes somewhere to explore with delight. If you enjoy Elf for the collision between his sincerity and everyone else’s practical concerns, the advert offers another small variation on that pleasure.
Elf · Film guide →IRN-BRU gives The Snowman a cheeky turn
IRN-BRU takes another route. Its campaign, first made in 2006, recreates a familiar animated world and changes the mood of the journey.
In a first-hand production interview, Sherbet’s Jonathan Bairstow describes The Leith Agency’s idea for a Snowman parody and Robin Shaw’s direction. The animation and colouring were done by hand, with the artwork scanned for digital finishing.
The method matters because recognition depends partly on the look. An audience expecting the softness of The Snowman’s world needs enough visual familiarity to settle into it. The joke can then pull against that expectation.
Where Asda lets Buddy remain joyfully himself, IRN-BRU plays with what we expect from the snowman. A recognisable journey becomes a place for a mischievous disagreement. The pleasure lies in the gap between the gentle story we remember and the cheekier one the advert offers.
For a film evening, that makes an interesting contrast rather than a substitute. Watch the original story on its own terms, then ask how the advert changes your expectations with very little time to do so.
The brand’s advert archive separates the original campaign from the 2018 sequel. The selected upload used for the original in our research is labelled 2017 Edition. That is a later presentation of the campaign, not a verified untouched 2006 broadcast master.
The Snowman · Film guide →Kevin the Carrot finds his Home Alone moment
Aldi’s 2022 main Christmas film puts Kevin inside a Home Alone-inspired adventure. The name supplies an immediate point of recognition, but the connection also rests on the familiar prospect of family separation and comic trouble.
System1’s contemporary account identifies Home Alone as the main film’s reference. It also distinguishes the separate airport-football teaser, which looked back to Nike’s 1998 World Cup advertising.
For a movie watchlist, that distinction is helpful. The football teaser is another piece of borrowing, but it is not the Home Alone Christmas film.
The recasting changes the scale of the comedy. An ordinary human setting can become an adventure landscape for a small animated character. At the same time, the familiar premise means the advert can move quickly: viewers who know the film arrive with a sense of the emotional direction before every detail is explained.
It is worth asking what you recognise first. Is it Kevin’s name, the situation or the rhythm of the jokes? A reference can work at several levels, and a viewer does not need to identify every nod to follow the story.
Watch Aldi’s official 2022 Christmas advert.
Home Alone · Film guide →A Christmas Carrot shares a story with many Christmas films
Aldi’s 2021 A Christmas Carrot is slightly different. Its connection begins with Dickens.
The campaign puts Ebanana Scrooge in the role of the Christmas-hating character, while Kevin appears as the Spirit of Christmas. Contemporary campaign coverage identifies the Dickensian tale and its cast of food characters.
A viewer who loves The Muppet Christmas Carol may enjoy watching the two together. That is a good editorial pairing: both invite us into a familiar redemption story through unlikely performers. It does not establish that Aldi specifically adapted the Muppet film.
This distinction leaves room for more interesting comparisons. Which parts of Scrooge’s story survive the change in cast? How quickly can we understand his unhappiness? What makes the eventual generosity satisfying?
Those questions connect an advert with the wider life of a story. You may recognise it from a book, a school production, an old black-and-white film or a musical. The advert can benefit from that accumulated familiarity without pointing exclusively to any one version.
If your household has a favourite screen Scrooge, use that as the companion viewing. The point is to notice a shared dramatic shape, rather than insist on a single route by which everyone came to know it.
The Muppet Christmas Carol · Film guide →Waitrose borrows the promise of a romcom
Sometimes the connection is a genre. Waitrose’s 2025 The Perfect Gift pairs Keira Knightley and Joe Wilkinson in a romantic comedy directed by Molly Manners and created by Wonderhood Studios.
In a production interview with the writers and director, the creative team describe building the idea around an ordinary man meeting a movie star. They also discuss referencing Richard Curtis’s work and having him read the developing script. Manners describes the challenge of delivering a satisfying romance in four minutes.
Those details make the creative relationship more precise. Curtis’s involvement does not make him the director, and Knightley’s presence does not turn the advert into a Love Actually sequel.
Instead, familiar romantic comedy expectations help orient the viewer: an unlikely match, a little awkwardness and the hope that affection will overcome the difficulty. A short film can invite us into that emotional territory without borrowing an entire feature’s plot.
For your own pairing, choose a Christmas romance whose tone you enjoy. Then compare how much time each story allows for hesitation, misunderstanding and the moment when somebody takes a chance.
Our suggested companion is Love Actually, for a longer evening of overlapping Christmas romances. This is a genre pairing, not a continuation of its characters or story.
Love Actually · Film guide →How to build your own advert-and-film double bill
Start with the kind of connection that interests you.
For a familiar performance in a new place, choose Asda and Elf. For a playful change of tone, pair IRN-BRU with The Snowman. For a story recast around an unlikely hero, put Aldi’s 2022 film beside Home Alone. For a shared literary structure, compare A Christmas Carrot with your chosen Scrooge.
You can reverse the order, too. Watching the advert first turns the feature into a chance to discover the source. Watching it afterwards makes the advert a little game of recognition.
The most revealing question is not simply whether you spotted the reference. Ask what the new setting lets the character or story do. Buddy acquires a workplace, Kevin acquires a familiar predicament, and an animated snowman acquires a different sense of humour. Each advert has to contribute something of its own if the return visit is to be worth making.
Explore more short festive stories in the CineClaus Christmas adverts collection.
