Today, Boots unwraps its 2025 festive campaign, “Gift Happily Ever After” inviting customers to experience the magic of meaningful gifting.
This year’s campaign reimagines the classic fairytale for today’s consumer, following feline protagonist Puss who, faced with the challenge of finding last-minute gifts ahead of the Snow Queen’s Ball, turns to his trusty mirror for advice. A flash of (obvious) inspiration – Boots – sets him on a journey from snowy fairytale land to a bustling UK high street, on a quest to find the ultimate Christmas beauty gifts for his beloved friends; Rapunz, Snowy, Cinders and Prince Charming.
The film sees Puss take on quite the adventure, battling through the snow in fairytale land passing some familiar magical faces, until a fierce gust of wind whips his beloved hat off and sees him dive headfirst into the snow to retrieve it. Puss falls through the clouds landing abruptly on a high street far far away from his fairytale village, with a Boots store shining brightly in front of him.
When inside the store, a Boots Beauty Specialist comes to his aid and helps him select standout gifts; the Shark Glam 5-in-1 Hot Tool for Rapunz, a No7 Pro Artist Lip Duo Set for Snowy, Carolina Herrera Good Girl Perfume for Cinders, and a No7 Cordless Mirror for Prince Charming. Delighted with their gifts, they head off together to the ball where The Snow Queen receives an extra special gift of hot hand warmers – thoughtful touches for every character.
Laura Gooday, director of marketing at Boots, said: “This year, more than ever, we want to help our customers gift happily ever after. Our campaign, brought to life by Puss and his fairytale friends, reminds everyone that Boots is the destination for finding the perfect gift for everyone on your list.
“To help every gift-giver, we are delighted to have added a further 50+ gifting brands to our extensive line up this festive season, including a global debut and high street exclusive with White Fox, trending favourites such as Made by Mitchell and Beauty of Joseon, as well as beautiful gifts from customer favourite brands such as Bubble, LANEIGE and No7, and much more more, meaning there’s truly something for everyone.”
Directed by award-winning duo DOM&NIC through Outsider and developed by RASCAL, the festive film seamlessly blends real-world scenes with imaginative animation to transport viewers between a fairytale land and a UK high street.
Juliana Paracencio, executive creative director at VML/The Pharm, added: “This campaign is our own little Christmas fairytale. A story where magic meets meaning. ‘Gift Happily Ever After’ invites people to see the season differently, with warmth, joy and a lot of fun, all told through the eyes of our fairytale feline who, once you see it, is impossible not to associate with Boots.”
Shot in the UK, the advert combines real footage and CGI to bring the story to life and features the soundtrack ‘Girls On Film’ by Duran Duran. It will air for the first time at 7 am on the 4 November on Boots social media channels, and then on ITV that evening during the Martin Lewis Money Show, airing at 8.15 pm. Following this, the fully integrated campaign will run for eight weeks across AV, Audio, OOH, Cinema, Print, Social & Online.
This year Boots is adding to its traditional media spend with new and innovative formats to target and engage a larger variety of viewers. The new strategy includes a first for Boots; using new on-the-go advertising via CityMapper which will utilise first party data to determine the highly relevant geos. The plan will also see the campaign advertised on the Snapchat Map – helping to connect with audiences on the move and bring them into store. Boots will also be one of the first brands in the UK to utilise game changing OOH activity; Westfield’s Eat Street window mall lifts, which will capture shoppers’ imagination in a high-traffic, festive environment. Plus, Boots is also reigniting its partnership with Global to sponsor the Capital Jingle Bell Ball, as well continuing its partnership of Glide at Battersea Power Station for a second year.
Through innovative digital and social placements, including a unique TikTok campaign and YouTube masthead, the Boots festive campaign will reach even more people with a combined audience of 53 million, doubling the average frequency to 60. Over the course of the campaign, the attention-grabbing OOH work will deliver 80.7 million impressions, delivering greater awareness than ever before.
Boots has worked with The Pharm, led by VML, to create a targeted 360 campaign, powered by data-driven insights and captivating visuals. The WPP partnership team dedicated to The Boots Group also includes WPP Media, Hogarth and Ogilvy PR who have led on media, production and PR.
