The launch
Chelsea FC has switched on ‘That’s Proper Chels’, its Christmas 2026 campaign, created by TILL DAWN and built on a strategy from brand consultancy ICONIC. It is rolling out in the lead-up to Christmas across digital platforms, while the festive range is available now at the Chelsea Megastore and chelseafc.com. No director is credited in the source.
Rather than a single hero spot, the work is built as a multi-part release: fans see outtakes and fourth-wall clips first, then a fuller programme of segments follows.
What the film says and how
The idea treats Christmas as a stretch of time, not one day. Chelsea becomes a festive TV-style network with its own weather, phone-in, shopping channel and ad breaks, all anchored to the club’s Christmas range. The early material is deliberately rough: corpsing, asides to camera and behind-the-scenes moments that most campaigns would cut. Audiences meet the cast before the polished programme arrives.
The schedule includes:
- Jolie Sharpe selling the festive range QVC-style
- Jason Cundy bringing a sports radio phone-in to life as himself
- João Pedro answering fan questions in ‘Ask João’
- Cole Palmer delivering the weather, with a Christmas jumper clash alongside Morgan Rogers
- Players from both squads, including Ellie Carpenter, Katie McCabe, Levi Colwill and Alyssa Thompson, joining across slots
A percentage of sales from the festive range goes to Chelsea Foundation and its charity partners, supporting work on loneliness and social isolation in London and nearby communities.
What the brand and agency say about it
Scott Fenton of Chelsea FC says the campaign ‘celebrates the nostalgia, humour and community spirit’ that make Chelsea unique at Christmas. He adds that the entertainment carries a ‘meaningful purpose’, with the club again supporting people experiencing loneliness and social isolation.
ICONIC founder James Kirkham points to how fans already watch football: they flick between ‘clips, streams, reactions and live shopping’ in one phone. That shaped a campaign built to ‘broadcast everywhere all at once’.
TILL DAWN founder Craig Stronach says the team shot ‘like a live network with every camera rolling’, so the corpsing, asides and looks off to the AD became part of the show. Fans get those moments first, then a flood of channels, then the whole programme.
The category context
This is Chelsea’s third campaign with TILL DAWN and ICONIC. It follows ‘London, It’s Our House’, which won a Gold Clio Sports award, and ‘Can’t Tame Us’, which put a ‘leaked’ Chelsea kit into culture this spring. The sequence shows the club leaning into entertainment and social-first formats rather than conventional sports advertising.
The charity element also builds on a track record: since launching its festive campaign in 2024, Chelsea has granted more than £280,000 to organisations tackling loneliness and homelessness across southwest London and Surrey. Last Christmas alone, supporters donated more than 3,200 presents.
What to watch next
Watch for how the full programme lands after the outtake-led build-up, and whether the club releases more detail on the festive range’s charity impact after Christmas. The bigger question is whether other clubs and retailers borrow the channel-hopping structure for their own seasonal launches.
Watch the original: Chelsea FC on YouTube
Source: Campaign Brief
