Lapse Productions tracks holiday advertising every year because our clients build campaigns around these moments, and Thanksgiving keeps growing as a marketing event. This roundup covers the ads that measurably won the 2025 season, the evergreen spots still worth studying, and what both tell you about planning your own campaign for Thanksgiving 2026. Instead of ranking on vibes, we lead with performance data.
The short answer
- Bud Light’s Officegate, with Peyton Manning, was the measured winner of Thanksgiving Day 2025, scoring 18 percent above the NFL ad norm (MarketCast).
- The common thread in 2025’s winners: humor built for the game-day context, consistent brand formulas, and value messaging with a creative twist.
- Thanksgiving is a revenue event: US shoppers spent a record 6.4 billion dollars online on Thanksgiving Day 2025 and 44.2 billion dollars across Cyber Week (Adobe Analytics).
- To compete in 2026, book your video production by mid-September and launch by late October.
Why Thanksgiving Video Ads Matter in 2026
Thanksgiving sits at the exact start of the biggest spending window of the year. According to Adobe Analytics, US consumers spent a record 6.4 billion dollars online on Thanksgiving Day 2025, Black Friday set its own record at 11.8 billion dollars, and the full Cyber Week reached 44.2 billion dollars, up 7.7 percent year over year. Attention is just as concentrated: MarketCast estimates roughly 141 million viewers tuned into the Thanksgiving Day NFL games in 2025.
For brands, that combination (peak goodwill, peak attention, and the shopping cycle just beginning) makes Thanksgiving the most efficient moment to put a video in front of your audience before the holiday noise fully takes over.
The Ads That Won Thanksgiving 2025, Measured
MarketCast measured which ads actually broke through during the Thanksgiving Day 2025 NFL slate, scoring each against the NFL regular-season norm. Here is the scoreboard, then a closer look at the top spots.
| Rank | Ad | Why it broke through | Breakthrough vs NFL norm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bud Light, Officegate | Game-day humor, a Peyton Manning cameo, and a natural fit with the brand’s NFL sponsorship | 18 percent above |
| 2 | Verizon, Kevin and Verizon Want You on the Nice List | Kevin Hart as a tiny elf, high energy, strong branding throughout | 7 percent above |
| 3 | Wayfair, Black Friday Caroling | Carol of the Bells rewritten as a deals jingle, a musical hook that carries the value message | 6 percent above |
| 4 | Chewy, Holidays: Hunter | Emotional pet storytelling, the brand’s proven formula with a holiday lift | 4 percent above |
| 5 | Chipotle, Build Your Own Chipotle | A UGC-style format with clear messaging and constant brand presence | At norm |
1. Bud Light, Officegate (Peyton Manning)
The premise: office workers stuck at their desks on a Sunday slowly reveal the game-day comforts hidden around the office, ending with Peyton Manning himself showing up with chili. The lesson for marketers is context. The ad was written for the exact moment it aired (football on a day you would rather not be working), and the celebrity cameo reinforces the brand’s long NFL partnership instead of feeling bolted on. That contextual fit is why it beat every other ad on the day.
2. Verizon, Kevin and Verizon Want You on the Nice List (Kevin Hart)
Verizon cast Kevin Hart as a tiny elf perched on a Christmas ornament, spying on a family to judge who deserves the brand’s holiday deal. The spot is loud, fast, and polarizing by design. The takeaway: a hard-sell offer lands far better when it is wrapped in a committed comedic idea, and casting a personality who fully matches the ad’s energy keeps branding high even for viewers who find the joke too much.
3. Wayfair, Black Friday Caroling (+6 percent vs the NFL ad norm)
Wayfair turned Carol of the Bells into a Black Friday deals carol, with singers delivering the price messaging door to door. Pure promotional content usually tests below brand storytelling, but the musical twist made the offer itself the entertainment. If your campaign has to be about the deal, give the deal a performance.
4. Chewy, Hunter (+4 percent vs the NFL ad norm)
Hunter is a dog with a nose for sniffing out the gifts his owner bought on Chewy. It is the brand’s established formula (an emotional story about a pet and their person) with a seasonal layer on top, and it shows the compounding value of a consistent creative franchise: audiences already know how a Chewy ad feels, so each new spot starts warm.
5. Chipotle, Build Your Own Chipotle (at the NFL ad norm)
Chipotle skipped holiday themes entirely, running a UGC-style spot for its build-your-own family meal format. Testing at the norm on the most competitive ad day of the season is a quiet win, and a reminder that clarity and brand presence can hold their own against seasonal spectacle.
Evergreen Thanksgiving Ads Worth Studying
These earlier spots stay in the roundup because the techniques behind them keep working.
Target, Thanksgiving Turkey
Quirky humor and one arresting visual (turkeys at bargain prices) carry the value message. Target tied the spot to a Thanksgiving meal deal, so the joke and the offer reinforce each other. Value messaging works best when the creative is the proof.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Promo
Pure brand association. Macy’s owns a cultural institution and simply reminds you of it. Most brands cannot buy a parade, but every brand can ask what tradition, moment, or ritual it can credibly attach itself to.
What Makes a Thanksgiving Ad Work in 2026
Across the measured winners and the evergreen picks, four principles keep showing up.
| Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Context beats polish | Write for the moment the ad airs. Officegate won because it was about watching football on Thanksgiving, not in spite of it. |
| Consistency compounds | Chewy’s formula wins year after year. A recognizable creative franchise builds equity that one-off spots never do. |
| Value needs a vehicle | Wayfair and Target both sold discounts, but through a song and a sight gag. The creative device is what makes the price stick. |
| Authenticity over cliches | Generic table-and-piano gratitude scenes blur together. Real people, specific stories, and honest humor cut through. |
One production note behind all of this: every winning TV spot above also lived as vertical cutdowns on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Plan one shoot that feeds every format rather than cutting a TV ad down after the fact.
How to Plan Your Own Thanksgiving Campaign
Thanksgiving 2026 lands on Thursday, November 26 in the US, with Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, October 12. Working back from a late-October launch, a standard corporate video production should be booked by mid-September. Our guide to holiday campaign planning has the full booking-deadline calendar for the season.
- Start with the story, not the sale. Build around gratitude, community, or honest humor, and let the offer ride inside the creative the way Wayfair and Target do.
- Design for a batch shoot. One production day should produce your hero spot, vertical cutdowns, and a promotional video for the wider season.
- Match the format to the placement. Long-form for TV, CTV, and your site. Captioned vertical cuts under 15 seconds for social feeds.
- Capture your own moments. A client appreciation dinner or team gathering shot by an event video crew often outperforms a staged spot for B2B audiences.
- Measure what matters. Shares, saves, click-through, and conversions. The brands above earned their rankings on measured breakthrough, not view counts.
Running a fall campaign before Thanksgiving? Our Halloween ads roundup covers the season’s earlier window.
Plan Your Thanksgiving 2026 Campaign
Tell us the goal and the launch date, and we will build the production schedule and the cutdown plan around it.
Get a Free QuoteFrequently Asked Questions
What made the best Thanksgiving ads of 2025 work?
Context, consistency, and creative value messaging. The top performer, Bud Light’s Officegate, was written specifically for the football-on-Thanksgiving moment it aired in. Verizon and Chewy leaned on recognizable formulas and personalities, and Wayfair made a discount memorable by turning it into a song. All five winners were measured on breakthrough against the NFL ad norm, not on view counts.
When should I start my Thanksgiving video campaign?
Book your video production by mid-September and launch by late October. A standard corporate video takes 4 to 6 weeks to produce, and the campaign needs several weeks of runway, since shoppers start buying well before the holiday. US Thanksgiving falls on November 26 in 2026, and Canadian Thanksgiving on October 12.
How much does a Thanksgiving video ad cost?
Our pricing packages start at $3,410 for a Simple production, $6,000 for Standard, and $8,000 for Premium. Seasonal campaigns usually pair one hero video with vertical cutdowns for social and paid placements, so contact us for a custom quote based on your deliverables.
Do Thanksgiving ads work for B2B brands?
Yes. Gratitude is a natural fit for B2B: client appreciation videos, year-in-review stories, and community spots all perform well in this window. With US consumers spending a record 6.4 billion dollars online on Thanksgiving Day 2025, attention during the holiday reaches decision makers too, not just retail shoppers.
Should my Thanksgiving ad run on TV or social media?
Both, from one shoot. Television and connected TV deliver concentrated reach, with roughly 141 million viewers watching the 2025 Thanksgiving NFL games, while captioned vertical cutdowns on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts extend the campaign through the whole shopping window. Plan the shot list so a single production day feeds every format.
About the author
Dario Nouri is a Producer and Co-Founder of Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company creating results-based content since 2014. He also hosts Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production.
Sources: MarketCast, The Ads That Scored Big on Thanksgiving Day (accessed August 2026); Adobe Analytics, 2025 Cyber Week and holiday season reports (accessed August 2026).