In between all the Christmas ads, late November also saw the begin-ning of a new campaign for Carling.
Once the home of one of the most famous and successful of all advertising slogans, "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label", Carling's ads haven't captured the public's imagination in the same way for some years.
But the brand is seeking to change all that with a new £14m campaign with the tagline "Belong". The first ad echoes epic sci-fi films, such as the recent British film Sunshine.
It is made by the same special effects team and shows a group of friends on a distant spaceship about to enter a glowing stargate when a disembodied voice bars one of them for wearing trainers.
The rest of the friends refuse to leave him, heralding the campaign slogan, "You know who your mates are".
The second ad is more in the spirit of boys-own-adventure, putting the same group of friends on a 19th-century polar expedition, huddled together in a tent in the middle of a howling blizzard.
While the ad echoes Scott of the Antarctic, rather than one of them going outside to sacrifice himself for the others, it's all of them going outside to celebrate Dan's birthday. Future ads in the campaign promise to put the friends in other historical locations.
But despite the expensive price tag and the fancy special effects, the first ad failed to create much of a buzz when it was first aired on 23 November.
BrandIndex does, however, show a positive effect on Carling's underlying scores during the campaign - its overall Index score rose from +1 to +3.
This was mainly driven by an increase in the perceptions of the brand as being good value, which rose from 0 to peak at +6 and, more importantly, an increase in its "recommend to a friend" score, up from -1 to peak at +4.
Methodology: YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday to form its BrandIndex, a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors.
It is measured on a seven-point profile:
1. Buzz
2. General impression
3. Quality
4. Value
5. Satisfaction
6. Recommend
7. Corporate reputation
In addition, we supply an index score.
By Sundip Chahal, www.brandindex.com.