It’s been a successfully busy year for UK beauty and we know Christmas is going to be even busier with full-on campaigns vying for gift-buying attention.

High street giant Boots has made its big promotional move, releasing its 2024 festive ad and marketing campaign ‘The Christmas Makeover’.

It’s all about “unleashing the magic of beauty” with actor and Bridgeton star Adjoa Andoh as Mrs Claus “in a wonderland of Boots beauty”.  

The film follows Andoh as she leads her squad of beauty elves in her Christmas ‘Werkshop’, reminding viewers that Boots “has a present for every kind of beauty enthusiast”.  
 
Giving Mrs Claus the ‘fame she deserves’ she shows off a werkshop with an epic outfit change and a swipe of No7 lipstick, to captivate viewers as the driving force behind festive gifting preparations. 

Viewers watch as she takes charge while Santa Claus sleeps, “helping to fulfil every Christmas wish list with exciting and unexpected beauty gifts from Boots, sure to wow both gift-givers and recipients alike”.  
 
Brands featured include Bubble Skincare, e.l.f, Sol de Janerio, and Laneige. 

The advert culminates with Mrs Claus triumphantly satisfied with her work, commenting: ‘You thought it was all him?’, giving a nod to “those powerhouses who make Christmas magical”. 
 
Alongside Andoh, the film also features two beauty social media influencers, @soph  and @snatchedbywill, both helping Mrs Claus by testing all the Boots beauty products as her ‘elf-fluencers’.

And although the ad’s female-centric, for the first time Boots will directly target men “as a growth audience” through a new and targeted media approach in particular in the last-minute lead up to Christmas across podcasts, social, YouTube & creator content.

Boots will also enter the world of gaming for the first time with Activision, with a bespoke Boots Christmas-themed game that will appear within Candy Crush, Bubble Witch Saga and Farm Hero Saga games.

With the wider campaign already airing on Boots’ social media channels alongside the most recent episode of ITV1 drama ‘Until I Kill You’. Following this, the fully integrated campaign runs for seven weeks across TV, radio, cinema, print, social, and online. 

Directed by production company Radical and LA director Dave Meyers and set to the soundtrack ‘Who’s That Girl’ by Eve, Boots said it has put innovation at the centre of the launch strategy, with 65% of its media strategy featuring new tactics to bring the campaign to life. Within this new approach, 50% of all media spend will be using first party data and 91% of the Boots target audience will be reached across the AV landscape. 

It said influencer activity also makes up a key part of this year’s campaign, with more above-the-line creator-led content than ever before, “increasing engagement online and across social media in new and exciting ways”. 

Pete Markey, Boots’ chief marketing officer, said: “We are on a mission to spread magic and excitement to beauty enthusiasts this Christmas, whilst also recognising the unsung powerhouses who make Christmas so special. This advert is the perfect culmination of both.”

He added: “In the past 12 months – our 175th anniversary year – we have expanded our beauty offering even further by launching another 55 new beauty brands, including some of the biggest names in beauty such as Prada Beauty, Made by Mitchell and Supergoop!”