TLDR
Woolworths' Christmas campaign, 'Tastes Like Christmas', turns customers' answers about their festive food into an original carol. It is the first major campaign from its new creative agency, Droga5 ANZ, and runs across Australia and New Zealand with a Spotify partnership and a value message led by $8-a-kilo ham.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
From farmers to customers
Woolworths has launched its Christmas campaign, "Tastes Like Christmas", built on its customers' festive food traditions and set to an original carol. It is the first major campaign from its new creative agency partner, Droga5 ANZ, and runs across Australia and New Zealand from 2 November.[1]
The supermarket asked shoppers "what tastes like Christmas to you?" and received more than 8,000 entries. Its previous two Christmas campaigns had centred on farmers.[2] Customer ideas including trifle and key lime pie appear in the campaign's meals and TV commercial, and the soundtrack recasts "It's the most wonderful time of the year" as the "most tastiest time of the year".[3]
"Every family across Australia and New Zealand has their own unique festive traditions, but food is always the thread that brings everyone together," said chief marketing officer Sean Barrett.[1] He told B&T that "that audio asset is really the centrepiece that glues everything in the campaign together".[2]
Droga5 ANZ chief creative officer Damon Stapleton said turning "real customer stories and local festive cravings into an original Christmas carol" let the agency make work that is "joyous, relatable, and uniquely tuned to how Australia and New Zealand celebrate today".[1]
Spotify and the media plan
Woolworths is extending the music through Spotify, sponsoring Christmas-inspired and personalised playlists and giving users a "Christmas Cook Profile" based on their listening habits. The campaign runs on free-to-air TV, radio, print, out-of-home, digital, YouTube, subscription TV, social, influencers and in-store.[1] Woolworths will judge it on transactions, customer numbers, sales and market share.[2]
The value message
The campaign supports a Christmas range of about 500 products, including more than 120 chef-curated items and nearly 60 desserts. Woolworths is holding its Australian Half Leg Ham at $8 a kilo for a fourth Christmas, and says more than 1,000 Lower Shelf Price products are an average of 16% below their previous shelf prices.[1]
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is Woolworths' 2026 Christmas campaign?
Who made it?
What is the ham price?
James Dore is founder and editor of Prompt the Market and Strategy Director at Bushnote, a Sydney strategy, SEO and AI search agency. He has a background in strategy, media and financial services, and led consumer product marketing at MONEYME. He writes on AI search, answer engines, technology policy and media economics.
