Ad of the Week – What do you expect from the New Year 2022?
As a second video of Feelin’s new weekly format, ‘ad of the week’, we will present you the results of our community’s reactions to the Christmas video of McDonald’s Belgium, ‘30 jours de Noël 2021‘, which also raises some questions about what could be expected in the upcoming New Year 2022.
You have probably seen the video, but the question is: do you think it works? Does it make people react?
The simple answer is: yes, it does. Do you want to discover more precisely how? If so, you can find the entire analysis below.
However, if you have still not seen this video, check out the link below first and let emotions invade you!
Also, if you missed our previous (and first) ad of the week analysis on the traditional Coca Cola Christmas video, no worries; you can read it: here.
If you don't have enough time to read the whole analysis: Check out the main results below × Dismiss alert
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People watched the video on their smartphones
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Men
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Women
Emotional impact
reacted 22%
showed positive emotions 77.5%
Attentional engagement
stayed fully engaged throughout the video 83.8%
Post video survey
liked the video 80%
Emotional Analysis
In this section, we will look at the emotions the audience felt when watching the video.
McDonald’s Christmas video made 22% of the audience reacted, which implies 4.83% more emotional reaction than the average (the score being of 16.79%). Similar to the Coca Cola Christmas video which was analysed last week, no less than 77.5% of those reactions were positive reactions – a nice 28.4% more than an average video! Although this video did not reach as high scores as the one of Coca Cola (with 84.9% of positive reactions, meaning 36% more than an average video), it deserves its place closed to the top champions of the category.
A progressive construction of the narrative can also be observed in McDonald’s Christmas video. However, what is even more obvious is the way to capture people’s attention by referring to different scenarios that could happen in 2022 that almost everybody can relate to.

Humoristic scenarios for the New Year – at 7 secs, 10 secs and 18 secs
Are you tired of the COVID-19 pandemic which seems to be a never-ending story? Are you also frustrated because you cannot make long-term plans without being afraid of any new restrictions and lock-downs that would destroy all your great plans?

As you can probably imagine, you are not the alone with these frustrations – and that is also the main basis of McDonald’s Christmas video and the reason why it works so well.

In this video, peaks of positive reactions can be observed, in particular when the meteorite crashes the car as a first scenario for 2022 (at 7 secs); when aliens invade the world as a second scenario for 2002 (at 10 secs) as well as when the teacher of the children is replaced by a machine as a third scenario (at 18 secs).

These scenarios are humoristic (or should we say ironic?) but at the same time, many people may relate to them as everybody has been somehow affected by the pandemic for almost two year now.
Quite effective, isn’t it? What do you expect from the New Year 2022?

Differences between men and women – at 10 secs and 15 secs
Although the reactions were in general positive, men’s reactions were more positive than women’s throughout the video. Women, for example, also did not react to the second scenario of aliens invading the world (at 10 secs; see above) and did react more negatively at the end of the video where McDonald’s logo and the picture of their Christmas campaign appear (37 to 42 secs). On the other hand, women reacted more positively to the little girl asking her dad about the alien (at 15 secs).

Considering that reactions may vary depending on gender, it is thus extremely important to think in advance what the target group of your ad is (women, men, both etc.). At Feelin, we help you to evaluate and adapt your ad, where necessary, by taking into account all your objectives.
Attention retention
In this section, we will look at the proportion of people who watched the video until the end.
What are the characteristics of an effective ad? Not only it needs to make people react in the expected way but also attract and especially keep their attention engaged during the first few seconds.

As you can see it from the table above, McDonald succeeded in keeping most people engaged in the content, with 83.8% of the audience remaining engaged until the end. This is in the average when compared to other videos we have tested (see the grey line on the chart).


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Meteorite falling down to Earth – at 4 secs
The table above also shows us that the attention of women stayed at 100% until the spot where a meteorite falls down to Earth (at 4 secs), compared to men whose attention already dropped during the first seconds of the video. However, here, the attention of men also decreases but not so quickly than among the women, which can be explained by the simple fact that the story takes its time to be set up.
After this spot, the attention of women remained stable until the appearance of the alien (at 12 secs); after that, the retention score of women stayed at 88% until the end.
Logo of McDonald’s and their Christmas campaign – 33 to 45 secs
McDonald’s logo appears at the first time at 33 seconds. As already explained in our previous analysis, in this classic of the genre, the logo appears right in the middle of the screen, which ensures that the brand is remembered. In this ad, the restaurant of McDonald’s, we all recognise, as well as the logo are both showed in the middle of the screen – so, mission accomplished!
It is interesting to note that the retention score of women stayed at 88% until the end of the video even though they reacted more negatively to the spots where McDonald’s logo and the picture of their Christmas campaign appear. Men’s attention, on the other hand, dropped at 37 seconds, which can be explained by the fact that the last 10 seconds dedicated to the McDonald’s logo and its Christmas campaign take probably a bit too long.
As people expect to see the packshot at the end anyway, one option – which McDonald’s could have tried too – is to get your brand noticed earlier by placing it at other points in the video. See our blog for further recommendations.
Survey results
This last section is all about the outcome of the message of the ad: Did the audience like it? Will they share it with their friends, via social media etc.? Are at least some of the audience now so interested in the product/ service in question that they will potentially buy it in the near future?

Survey results are an accurate way to see if the video touched its audience. As you can see it from the table above, McDonald’s Christmas ad succeeded in making nice scores (in blue) beyond the benchmarks (in purple) in all the evaluated fields (likeability; shareability; arousal; purchase intent and interest). Well done!
And last, but not least: the Feelin team wishes you all the best for the New Year 2022!
If you found the analysis interesting and meaningful, feel free to visit our online platform to discover more use cases and explore all insights.
You can also book a demo to have a fresh start for the new year!