PC World and Halfords

As a retailer of electrical hardware, a firm like Currys PC World depends on the boost to demand that Christmas provides.  Similarly, the UK's largest bicycle retailer, Halfords, relies on Christmas sales - Halfords, in fact, launched their Christmas TV advertisement on 1 October this year.

Currys PC World brought out their advertisement on 21 October, still early even by retailer standards.  They also launched a companion, the-making-of-the-ad video on YoutTube at the same time, something tried by several other retailers this year.  The main advertisement features some slick graphics where consumer electronics and white goods in a warehouse appear to waltz to a catchy soundtrack.  Viewing figures, at just over 15,000 to date, must be disappointing.

On Twitter the company promoted the ad's theme as the hashtag #WeStartWithYou.  Indeed, this began promisingly around the lanch date, but didn't make it into November even.  Curry's PC World are one of the smaller retail presences on Twitter with just 54,000 followers.  They are far more comfortable on Facebook where they have nearly half a million fans.  Unfortunately, though, customers are invariably using these pages to complain about poor service and unreliable products.



Consumer electronics are all very well, but Halfords asks "does anything beat a bike?".  Their TV ad has gained over 185,000 views on YouTube  The Daily Telegraph was ambivalent about the ad but grudgingly admitted "It works".  The catchy soundtrack is by Cairobi: called Zoraide it is available to download, although Halfords has none of the charity tie-ins favoured by John Lewis or Asda for their Christmas music.

Halfords' presence on social media is far less obvious than for most similarly-sized retailers.  Their 27,000 Twitter fans are given a regular diet of competitions and offers.  Here Halfords uses the predictable hashtags #Christmas and #Xmas.  They have had more success with #nothingbeatsabike, and have been able to link this back to the TV advertisement on YouTube.  Halfords are the least active of any of our sample of major retailers on Facebook, with just 52,000 likes to show.  Their Facebook pages mostly reflect what they do on Twitter: competitions, offers and promotions.




Our verdict: two very well made advertisements, effectively using music but not getting the engagement of other retailers.  Maybe they peaked too early.  Christmas?  October?