Christmas adverts 2017: Peacocks ad featuring Jedward and Honey G is your favourite

The fact we held a poll – and that around 1,500 of you voted – is testament to the fact that the festive TV adverts have become part of our way of life.

They are also worth millions of pounds. With a Hollywood director, a glitzy, prime time premiere and a fancy soundtrack to boot, the new John Lewis Christmas advert featuring the lovable Moz The Monster has become a must-see film. The two minute clip was watched eight million times on Youtube within a week of its release, proving once again that festive ads are box office gold as far as retailers are concerned.

Our fascination with Christmas advertising isn’t actually anything new, originating from the early Coca Cola ads featuring coke bottles dancing in the snow, to the 1970s when the now defunct Woolworths put out a series of star studded campaigns involving the likes of Tony Blackburn and Henry Cooper.

For the last decade John Lewis has taken over as the mantle, producing a string of classic ads, including Monty the Penguin (27m Youtube views and counting) and last year’s Buster the bouncing boxer dog (26m views). This year’s expensive-produced effort may well end up being the retailer’s most successful one yet – although the firm has been accused of pinching ideas for the ad from a children’s book.

And despite the department store’s monster budget, it did not even make the top three of this year’s best Christmas ads as far as our readers are concerned.

According to 31 per cent of respondents to our poll, that honour goes to clothing retailer Peacocks. Its ad features a bevy of X-Factor ‘stars’ including so-called rapper Honey G and the endlessly annoying duo Jedward, who haven’t had a song in the charts since Woolies was last open.

The 30 second clip starts off with carol singing but soon deteriorates into a festive rap, featuring the likes of 10th series winner Sam Bailey and Dudley’s very own Wagner.

At the end of the ad Honey G says: “Peacocks just sleighed it”. It’s an acquired taste for sure, and will undoubtedly annoy as many as it entertains.

Readers were also impressed with the efforts of supermarket giant Aldi. The store’s advert features a talking, walking carrot strutting around the Christmas dinner table. “I think I just peed myself,” he tells his new-found love (a lipstick-wearing lady carrot) as the pair recline on a bed of fairy cakes before having a quick snog.

This year’s Marks & Spencer’s advert – Paddington and the Christmas visitor – has also proved popular, with 15 per cent of our readers loving the efforts of Peru’s most famous export to help Santa with his rounds.

Other adverts proved less popular however, with House of Fraser’s ultra-tedious Bring Back Merry scoring a big, fat zero.

And it was a similar story for TK Maxx, with the pledge to bring snow to people’s front doors going down about as well as a dose of arsenic in the mulled wine.

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Argos also appears to be guilty of a festive foul up. The store’s effort, Ready For Take Off, spluttered to a standstill in our poll.

The adverts are part of a total advertising splurge of nearly £6 billion planned for the final quarter of 2017 – £140m more than last year, according to the Advertising Association – as stores and big brands attempt to persuade shoppers to forget their straining household budgets and enjoy a festive binge.

As Leo Rayman, of Grey London, the agency behind M&S’s Paddington-led campaign, points out: “A bad Christmas can make or break a company’s year.”