We're now officially into the Advent countdown, but before we even hit December, the Christmas advertising was already in full flow, mostly laden with celebrities or Santa Clauses.
The most notable celebrity catch seems to have been by Tesco, whose Christmas ad campaign is fronted by the Spice Girls.
The girl power gang have only recently reunited after a seven-year hiatus and the Tesco ad rather conveniently lines up with the launch of their Greatest Hits album, a new single and the start of their worldwide tour starting this month.
The ad shows the five Spices in store buying secret Santa presents for one another and having to hide in various places (behind Christmas trees, inside jumpers, in Transformer masks and so on) so they aren't spotted by their band mates.
According to newspaper reports, the girls were paid £1m each for the ad campaign.
Tesco's ratings on BrandIndex started down this month as a result of the negative reaction to the Competition Commission's report into supermarkets, so it was on a recovery trend by the time the ad debuted on 12 November.
Buzz peaked at only eight points, up a meagre two points, its "recommend to a friend" score has remained static, while its quality rating has fallen by three points to 33.
Only in general impression is there any rise in scores, where it's up five points to 37 - not much of a boost for a big Christmas ad campaign.
Away from the small screen, the Spice Girls' comeback single has also failed to trouble the upper reaches of the charts - perhaps Tesco's celebrity coup doesn't have the zig-a-zig-ah it had hoped for.
METHODOLOGY
YouGov's BrandIndex is a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors, measured on a seven-point profile, with data delivered on the next day.
YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday, more than half a million interviews per year.
This means you can spot trends as soon as they happen, not when it's too late. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of more than 130,000.
The score is the net rating: people are asked to identify the brands to which they have a positive response, and then those to which they have a negative response, to whatever is the prompt measure.
The net score is the positive minus the negative.
The seven measures that make the complete profile are below.
Each is taken independently - in any one survey, any individual respondent is asked about only one measure for the sector, not all seven. Therefore, none of the readings influence each other within the survey.
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.