“By aligning our Christmas creative with the moments when people were most emotionally engaged and actively planning their festive shop, we were able to show up in a way that felt relevant, distinctive, and effective — and clearly see how attention translated into brand impact.”
when above Attention Threshold
across OLV
on Desktop Skins
On Desktop Skins
(45% above benchmark)
Christmas is Aldi’s most important period of the year. The brand needed to balance two complementary objectives: building emotional brand connection at scale, while also clearly landing messages around quality, range, and value that drive consideration and purchase.
On the brand side, the goal was to reinforce what makes Aldi distinctively Aldi, making customers feel Aldi can make Christmas special and driving awareness, buzz, and consideration.
From a tactical perspective, the campaign needed to ensure customers clearly understood Aldi has all the products that make Christmas special, reinforcing quality, range, and price perceptions to drive intent and action.
Alongside these objectives, Aldi wanted deeper insight into how attention impacts effectiveness, moving beyond reach and clicks to understand the role of high-quality, high-attention media environments.
Aldi and Starcom partnered with GumGum to activate a mindset-led contextual strategy that aligned Christmas creative with moments audiences were most engaged, emotionally primed, and actively planning their Christmas shop.
By pairing GumGum’s Mindset Graph™ with Attentive Lift measurement, the campaign went beyond exposure to understand how deeper attention translated into incremental brand impact, and how optimal attention time enhanced both brand and tactical outcomes.
Using Mindset Graph insights, we identified high-intent Christmas moments across contextual environments where food, family, and togetherness naturally intersect.
The strategy focused on aligning Aldi with content across Food & Drink, Recipes, Entertaining and more, ensuring the brand appeared alongside moments directly connected to Christmas preparation.
Two core mindset themes shaped activation:
Family & Emotion
Emotionally rich, family-centric content reinforced Aldi’s role in shared Christmas moments, strengthening consideration and emotional connection.
Food & Home
Recipe, baking, and tradition-driven contexts positioned Aldi at the heart of the Christmas shop, reinforcing quality, range, and value perceptions.
High-impact formats including Desktop Skins, Mobile Skins, and Online Video (OLV) were deployed across premium inventory to maximise visual impact and sustained attention.
The campaign resonated most strongly with users consuming food- and Christmas-related content. Display placements aligned with keywords such as “food” and “Christmas” delivered the strongest CTRs, while video placements alongside “recipe” and “Christmas dinner” content drove the highest completion rates.
Using GumGum’s Attentive Lift Study, Aldi was able to directly measure how increased attention time drove incremental brand lift, proving that higher attention environments delivered stronger brand outcomes.
The campaign successfully delivered both emotional brand storytelling and tactical performance during Aldi’s most competitive season.
Mindset-aligned environments tied to food, family, and Christmas planning drove the strongest attention, engagement, and video completion, validating the importance of showing up in moments that truly matter.
Attentive Lift analysis confirmed that attention acts as a multiplier. When ads were viewed above GumGum’s attention threshold, Aldi achieved a +21% lift in unaided awareness, demonstrating that higher-attention environments directly amplified brand impact.
By moving beyond standard exposure metrics, the campaign proved that aligning with the right mindset, and earning meaningful attention, drives measurable brand growth during peak retail moments.
when above Attention Threshold
across OLV
on Desktop Skins
On Desktop Skins
(45% above benchmark)
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