Primark, TK Maxx and Matalan

TK Maxx, Primark and Matalan are all large retailers, competing for the same sorts of business as Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, John Lewis, Littlewoods and the House of Fraser. For all of these stores, the Christmas season is the busiest time of year, so how have they set out their stalls on television this year?

 The TK Maxx advertisement was released on November 5.  It has a punchy backing track from Solomon Burke, 'Everybody needs somebody to love'.  However, there is no download tie-in to iTunes.  The ad has been seen just short of 12,000 times on YouTube. There are 6 companion pieces showing the 'ordinary' couples who feature in the original ad.  Viewings for these are numbered in the hundreds.

TK Maxx has a fairly small Twitter following of 25,000, who are treated to offers and promotions, with a few competitions thrown in.  The Twitter feed promotes the videos extensively.  However there is no recognisable TK Maxx hashtag being used. It is very much the same story on Facebook, where TKM has nearly 430,000 fans.




Primark's TV advertisement, launched on 20 October, has had a mere 5,600 viewings.  We know absolutely nothing about this ad.  However, the company has more Facebook fans than any other UK retailer (nearly 3.5 million) and is consistently growing its business.  Primark uses Facebook extensively and embeds movies on the FB pages.  Most postings are heavily 'liked' and commented on, and Primark seem not to have the problem with complaining customers using Facebook to sound off about poor service or faulty products.

Primark's Twitter pages have nowhere near the same audience, although they repeat much of the same material.  Their use of hashtags is generic: for example #Christmas, #Primark, #menswear.




Finally, Matalan's Christmas to Remember may be the one they want to forget, with just 900 views since its launch on November 13.  The explanation for these dismal figures may be the earlier release launch of another Matalan commercial, tied in with a fund-raising campaign based around Pixie Lott's music.  This is downloadable from iTunes, as happens with music from John Lewis's TV campaign and Asda's.  The charity advert, Alphabet Scarves, has a much more impressive 115,000 viewings.

Unsurprisingly, the charitable campaign features on Matalan's social media platforms.  The company has 183,000 'likes' on Facebook, a comparatively small figure for a national retailer.  Similarly, Matalan have kept the Alphabet Scarves campaign prominent on Twitter.  Here the hashtags #AlphabetScarf and #scarfie are working well for Matalan.