It’s beginning to look a lot like... rebranding.

For me Christmas begins when BBC1 'puts up the Christmas decorations'. This is the phrase the network communicates its seasonal rebrand to viewers.

Ever since I was little, seeing the globe disappear and then partridges arrive in slightly dodgy animation was something to really look forward to. I guess this was a pre cursor of where my interests in life were heading. Of course back then it didn’t look like marketing it looked like something innocent and a little present from the network.

Now the Christmas package sets the tone and feel for the network. It has spiralled into multiple idents, ‘news safe’ versions, promo end boards, update spilt screen graphics - everything has been considered. Apart from the HD holding loop for regional programmes and that is a little bit of a shame.

2020 has been the strangest of years so no suprise that the package this year is very warm and welcoming. Completely animated we have Zog and The Gruffalo. I guess another advantage of taking this approach is neither of them need to socially distance. It’s definitely one of the nicest creations of recent years and it’s so nice to hear some really great musical arrangements too. For the last few years this seems to have been rather an after thought. In ‘the old days’ we used to get the rebrand a couple of days before Christmas , now it’s a month. BBC one really is ready for Christmas and for me that is the starting gun that the festive season is here!

I thought it would be nice to have a quick look at a couple of campaigns from the past. Starting with the partridge (1988)

.....and not to forget this classic on a spinning turntable from 1985.

And from times when it was easier to get stars together, this rather impressive, but dated, song kicked off the launch in 2011

Happy Christmas !