Iceland Foods: Jungle Bells

Discount food retailer Iceland has continued to use celebrity Peter Andre to front its TV advertising.  The Christmas 2014 campaign features a range of desserts and is notable for having background music recorded by Andre himself.  He has recorded a whole album which is available exclusively in Iceland - and via iTunes.  There does not appear to be any charity tie-in with this album - something that Asda and John Lewis have set up with their Christmas music.

The ad was premiered on November 5, but to date its 16,000 viewings must be disappointing for a high profile campaign.  Andre's White Christmas album has yet to appear in the UK charts.  The campaign has perhaps been overshadowed by controversy on November 17 after the singer was reported to have poked fun at his sponsor on another TV show.  In what was described as an audience backlash, there were calls on social media for Andre to be sacked by Iceland.

Iceland actually is relatively insignificant on Twitter with just 18,000 followers (compared to Sainsbury's 300,000) and we have been hard put to find the resignation calls.  Iceland's social media pages are dedicated largely to their promotion of the reality TV show I'm a Celebrity.  In addition to the visuals on Facebook and Twitter, the company produces Celebrity themed merchandise in store, including a board game.  Almost the entire social media commentary is based around the TV show, although Iceland does incentivize its fans with prizes from time to time.



Imaginatively, it has themed displays instore where shoppers can photograph themselves in a Celebrity photomontage and share the resulting images online.  On Twitter the most commonly used hashtag is #ImACeleb.  For the moment, at least, Christmas has yet to arrive at Iceland.  No wonder the TV commercial is doing so badly on YouTube.

Peter Andre works reasonably hard for his sponsors.  On Twitter his 3.2 million fans dwarf Iceland's small following, and he is regularly linking his supporters to the supermarket's social media campaigns.

In summary: a lot of things waiting to happen. Including Christmas.  In the meantime, business as usual.

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.

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?

House of Fraser & Harrods: a Tale of Two Retailers

Arguably the world's most famous department store, Harrods was at one time part of the House of Fraser group.  Now the two trade separately and compete for the same customers.

House of Fraser operates over 60 stores across the UK and Ireland, and has recently opened a store in Abu Dhabi.  They launched their TV advertisement on 14 November.  A second version was launched on 19 November, with the same theme. This was reported to be their first brand advertising on TV for over a decade, and part of a £4 million investment in branding. At the time of writing it had received a meager 17,000 viewings compared to the 17 million achieved by direct rival John Lewis. The second installment from HoF is currently scoring just over 4,000 hits.  One journalist wondered HoF had produced "the most boring Christmas advert of 2014".  However, digital measurement analyics reported that there had been a 610% jump in interest in House of Fraser as a result of the advertisement.



Curiously, House of Fraser does not appear even to have mentioned this major new piece of branding to its 300,000 Facebook fans.  It is highly proactive in providing quizzes, competitions and special offers, but no links through to YouTube apart from on the page's sidebar.  They have even put on a promotion that seems to borrow from Marks & Spencer's #TheTwoFairies idea of making gifts to random good causes.  The Facebook intiatives are largely replicated on Twitter, although the moderators there have attempted (repeatedly) to publicise the ads on YouTube.  There is no dedicated hashtag in use.

Harrods, by contrast, have produced a TV and cinema advertisement that is getting viewed and talked about.  Its animated film is striking and was described by the Daily Telegraph as "charming in a very understated way".  Harrods has far more followers on Twitter (432,000 of them) than any other UK retailer.  It has not followed John Lewis (Monty the Penguin) and Homebase (Harriet) in making its central character into a social media sensation, although it does frequently name tag its Peter Pumpernickel character.  Harrods's preferred hashtag is the predictable #HarrodsChristmas.



Harrods has announced a selfie-based competition in store featuring the mouse character.  No PP merchandise, though - a wasted opportunity perhaps, given that Monty the Penguin replicas sold out in John Lewis on day one, despite their £95 price tag.  Harrods are using Facebook and Instagram to publicise its Christmas campaign.  Once again, Harrods is immensely popular on these sites, with over 600,000 likes on Facebook.  They are constant communicators here, with most of the postings engaging effectively with Harrods fans, who 'like' the posts in their hundreds and comment frequently.  But despite their social media skills and the eye-catching quality of the advertisement, 37,000 viewings on YouTube is a disappointing return.  Particularly when contrasted with John Lewis's 17 million hits.

Do-it-yourself @Christmas

The two major home improvement (DIY) retailers have positioned themselves to get a slice of the festive spending.  B&Q launched their Christmas advertisement on 7 November, and Homebase followed on 19 November.

B&Q's movie seems there to show that the firm not only sells trees, lights and decorations, but a range of toys also.  The ad itself is pretty unremarkable: what is more interesting is their campaign to get digital engagement via something called The Big Switch On.  The company is encouraging customers to decorate their trees and to film the moment when the lights are lit.

These bits of film are then uploaded to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, using the hashtag #ChrismasUnleashed.  B&Q have a long running campaign using the term unleashed.
B&Q then add the location of these uploads to a UK map.  This mirrors the Waitrose campaign to get customers singing; in both cases the companies promise that the best results will appear in later TV advertising.



At the time of writing (25 November) this imaginative idea hasn't exactly gone viral.  The map shows a few dots around London and one in the Bournemouth area.  But it is early days and the plan seems to be to make December 6 be the big switch on day.  B&Q's 46,000 Twitter followers seem muted.  In fact the #ChrismasUnleashed hashtag seems to be being used by other retailers and as a generic term by the Twitterati.  Both here and on Facebook (B&Q has over 125,000 likes) the moderators are dilligently promoting the Big Switch On: however, on Facebook at least these posts are often being hijacked by disgruntled customers complaining about poor service or faulty products.  The Christmas TV ad has to date performed miserably on YouTube with just 12,000 viewings.

Homebase launched their TV ad less than a week ago (19 November) but are already showing viewing figures ten times those recorded by their competitor.  Homebase have created their own cute canine character, Homebase Harriet, with a dedicated social media presence on Twitter. In doing this they are following John Lewis's lead creating a virtual identity for Monty the Penguin.  Harriet has her own TV commercial which has gained an impressive 140,000 viewings in less than a week. To date Harriet has failed to get anything like the social media traction shown by Monty, with just 71 followers to Monty's 33,000.



In summary, two similar brands, both promising to transform fairly mundane TV advertising campaigns with promising sounding social media strategies.

The Upstarts: Lidl, Aldi and #LittleSurprises

For supermarkets the Christmas season represents a chance to boost sales and profits at a time when normal rules are suspended.  According to market researchers Kantar, all of the top 5 UK supermarkets (with the exception of Asda) are losing market share.  While gains have been made by Waitrose and small multiple stores, the biggest gainers are Lidl (up 18% in the latest quarter) and Aldi (27% higher in the same period).

Jools Holland in the 2014 Aldi advertisement
Picture from MarketingMagazine

Both these stores are well established challengers to Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.  Each of these have now rolled out impressive-sounding TV advertising campaigns for 2014.  It is important to remember, though, that the biggest spender in 2013 was Tesco, who actually lost sales during the festive period.

Lidl's campaign for the end of 2014 is part of a much larger one, based around the theme of 'Lidl surprises'.  The overall campaign (not just the Christmas part) is costing the company  £20 million (according to The Grocer) - this looks impressive except when set against Tesco's spend last year of £25 million.  Lidl, like other supermarkets this year, intend to get more value out of their advertising by linking it to social media and other channels.

The 'surprises' theme in the Lidl advertisement comes over in the reaction of the 'ordinary people' from Hertfordshire who are seen tucking into a Christmas meal prepared from Lidl groceries.  There is surprise at being served lobster at the start, and stollen for dessert. Most of all, the diners are surprised to discover the provenance of the food: they had believed that it was from Waitrose or Marks & Spencer (both named in the film).  This should come as no surprise as Lidl had named these as targets in the pre-publicity.

On social media Lidl has been promoting the campaign, and has succeeded in getting the advertisement seen nearly 300,000 times to date.  Of course this is a small figure alongside the 12 million views that Sainsbury's has achieved.  Lidl is far less active on Twitter than all its competitors with a mere 16,500 followers.  Here there seems to be a great deal of confusion, with the official Twitter feed using numerous hashtags including #LidlChristmas, #Lidler and #LidlSurprises.  The social media channels are very effective at getting over the 'surprising' new Christmas goodies in store.

Lidl has 750,000 Facebook fans, where is uses the same range of hashtags.  The campaign launch was somewhat overshadowed by Lidl introducing what was popularly believed to be a "ban" on the use of any language but English by staff in Lidl stores.  

Aldi, unlike most retailers in 2014, has opted to feature a celebrity: Jules Holland and his band appear at the end of commercial.  The theme of the advertisement, "everyone's coming to us" is a witty poke at the way Aldi is growing at the expense of established competitors.  The TV advertisement itself, launched on Novemer 5, is nowhere near as popular as Lidl's, gaining just 50,000 views to date, despite the celebrity endorsement.  However the company outscores its German rival on Facebook with over 800,000 fans.  It also has a far larger Twitter following.  Both high scores are probably attributable to the company's successful ways at 'incentivizing' its fans with competitions and offers.  There is just one mention of the TV campaign, though.

The success of Aldi and Lidl should not be overstated: much of it is attributable to locational effects - both firms are opening new stores steadily across the UK.  Their campaigns in broadcast media and online stress product quality over low prices.  But the market share figures speak for themselves: everyone is going to them.

Is this war? Morrisons and #MakeChristmasSpecial

Ant & Dec in the new advertisement.  Picture Daily Star

The last major UK retailer to reveal their Christmas advertising campaign is Morrisons.  This is launching tonight (14 November) during the commercial break in Coronation Street, which should expose the ad to around 7 million viewers.
 
Morrisons' 350,000 Facebook fans were given a preview last night, while the ad was launched on YouTube earlier today.  It was a slow start: at the time of writing the ad was getting about 50 hits an hour on the official page: in the same period last night, Sainsbury's were achieving 150,000 an hour.  Sainsbury's have a theme of war, and the press have been making it clear that competition on the high street is so severe that war is exactly what is being declared on TV and online.

According to the popular press Morrisons are targeting Lidl and Aldi, and using the ad to stress the freshness of their food.  Evidently 2013 found Morrisons shoppers to be "promiscuous", splitting their shopping between the major supermarket and their cheaper German rivals. With like-for-like sales down 7.4% in the first 6 months of 2014, this turned out to be "disastrous" for Morrisions and the new campaign aims to win the wayward shoppers back into a monogamous relationship.

Marketing is the key to Morrisons' turnaround strategy, according to their brand and communications director; the plan is to "ramp up [the] Christmas marketing budget".  Last year Tesco did the same and actually saw a drop in sales of 2.4%.  Morrisons plans to be more clever with their spend: like others it has plans to leverage social media traffic.  This involves music, with the supermarket sponsoring Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball, and a deal with boy band Union J.  Both of these initiatives are designed to give audiences content to share on social media. Union J have more than 1.5 million Twitter followers, mostly thought to be children or young teens.  The Jingle Bell Ball will associate Morrisons with major acts including Taylor Swift, Take That, OneRepublic and Ed Sheeran.

Morrisions are also behind the launch of a special recording of their Christmas song "It's beginning to look a lot like Chrismas" by Union J, which will be performed at special ''song booths' in some stores where customers will be able to record their own voices over the song and share these via social media.  Sounds like a terrible idea to us, but hey, there's a war on.



Some more point-of-sale promotion (rather than the virtual kind) will come via giant Christmas pudding shaped vans visiting 32 different stores, offering free food and money off vouchers.  This is similar to what online-only retailer Littlewoods is doing with pantomime themed promotions in city centres.

Morrisons are continuing to invest in celebrity endorsement, with the 2014 fronted by Ant and Dec as in previous years.  As we have noted in other posts, celebrities can be very useful in social media if they work for their money, as they generally have much larger fan bases than the retailers.  Morrisons have been attempting to kickstart the campaign via Twitter with the #MakeChristmasSpecial hashtag - a clumsy choice (too long and tricky to spell) which so far has gained no traction online.

In summary, a piece of advertising which will fail to engage with the chattering classes, but which clearly targets a particular audience - "Mums and kids".  Morrisons have thought through the issues and have something in place that may just people sharing its values.  The problem is that, at the time of writing at least, not even the mums and kids have bought into the campaign.

Sainsbury's declaration of war: #ChristmasIsForSharing

Commemorative WW1 chocolate: picture from The Guardian

What can we say about Sainsbury's 2014 Christmas TV commercial?

1. It has almost no product placement (like John Lewis);
2. At nearly 4 minutes, it is much longer than John Lewis);
3. It tugs at the emotional heartstrings (like John Lewis);
4. It "might not drive footfall directly, but it will build brand love and strengthen the consumer connection" (Marketing magazine), (just like John Lewis).

Or, as The Independent's headline put it, "Sainsbury's Christmas advert is like a 4-minute 'f*** you' to John Lewis and Monty the penguin".  At the time of writing the video on YouTube is being watched around 150,000 times every hour. In the 24 hours since the ad was screened 100,000 people have 'liked it' on Facebook.  There are 200 comments being posted about it on Twitter every hour.

The 2014 Sainsbury's Christmas advertisement replays the episode, almost 100 years ago, when enemies on the front line in World War I suspended hostilities on Christmas Day and joined in spontaneous acts of friendship with 'the enemy'.  It taps into growing public interest in the anniversary of the start of the war, and builds on a long-term 'Corporate Social Responsibility' (CSR) link that the company has with the Royal British Legion.

So is this all about John Lewis?  According to the press, yes.  Sainsbury's learned from John Lewis in 2013 that when you build brand, trust and emotional engagement, this translates into sales.  Sainsbury's shares the same sort of customer demographic as John Lewis, but has been losing market share throughout 2014.  The biggest spender on advertising in 2013 was Tesco, but their sales dropped over the crucial Christmas period.  Sainsbury's will engage with its audience: that's the plan, at least.

The small piece of product placement in the advertisement is a bar of chocolate.  It is available in stores for a modest £1.  The chocolate is made in Ypres, Belgium, the centre of some of the most bloody fighting in WW1.  All profits are being donated to the Royal British Legion which has historically looked after the interests of ex-servicemen.  The gesture looks generous alongside John Lewis's merchandising of Monty the Penguin.  Their £95 replica of Monty sold out in hours, but there was no associated charitable giving.

No doubt this stunning piece of film is going to win Sainsbury's and their creative team some advertising awards.  It is likely to win the hearts and minds of many who watch the advertisement.  The choice of war is a risky one: who wants to be reminded of its horrors?  But, as the press reminds us, supermarkets are engaged in their own battles and this campaign is one that Sainsbury's hope will go their way.

Postscript: in the hour that it has taken to write this post, Sainsburys's advertisement has been viewed nearly 200,000 times on YouTube.

#TheBigSmile: not much to smile about

The UK's major supermarkets are having a tough time.  Prices are dropping, smaller competitors are growing and people shoppers are deserting the mega-stores for smaller convenience shops closer to home.   Last week Asda showed it was serious about regaining market share over the crucial Christmas period when it rolled out its new campaign.  As with most other retailers, the focus is the TV advertisement.

Asda are also joining the quest to develop a meme, to encourage their message to go viral. John Lewis has shown how this can work.  Asda's posted the ad to YouTube on November 6: at the time of writing it has had 13,000 viewings.  John Lewis put on that sort of number in the first hour.

The theme of the ad is smiling, something reinforced throughout with visuals and music.  They told Marketing that "It captures those personal touches and thoughtful gestures that put a smile on people’s faces at Christmas."  It premiered on ITV during Emmerdale on November 6, which would have given them around 5 million viewers.

In our view the creative masterstroke is the soundtrack.  Jahmene Douglas, a former X-Factor runner up has recorded a cover of a classic Louis Armstrong number 'When you're smiling'.  The lyrics chime perfectly with the visuals on screen.  To encourage the meme effect Asda has gone the same route as John Lewis by releasing the music as a digital download, with most of the proceeds being donated to charities Children in Need and Save the Children.  The charities, and Jahmene himself, are promoting the song, and by extension Asda's campaign.  But while John Lewis's number entered the charts at number 21, 'When you're smiling' has yet to make it.

Similarly the hashtage #thebigsmile hasn't really taken hold as yet.  There are just a few tweets a day, many of them linking to the music.  Surpisingly the Asda Facebook page, with 1.4 million fans, mentioned the campaign on launch day but has been silent since.

On present showing the Asda campaign isn't gaining any traction.  Not much to smile about.

Every Little Helps: #MakeChristmas

In the run up to Christmas 2013, supermarket Tesco laid out £25 million for TV advertising, outspending all other UK retailers.  Tesco's sales actually fell by 2.4% over the period and the company was forced to issue a profit warning.

Still from the Tesco TV ad.  Source The Guardian

Fast-forward a year and retail sector are spending another £700 million on TV advertising.  Over the past few days we have written about the John Lewis campaign featuring Monty the Penguin, and Marks & Spencer's #FollowTheFairies.  The media research firm Nielsens suggests that overall TV spending will be down slightly this year, while most other experts believe that a larger proportion of marketing budgets will be spent linking these campaigns to social media.

At the time of writing, John Lewis's Monty advertisement had been viewed 10.5 million times on YouTube.  M&S, which had debuted a day later was on on 2.5 million.  #MontyThePenguin has remained 'trending' on Twitter since the launch on 6 November.  Both campaigns have a strong narrative element; like all the best marketing, they tell an engaging story.  They are strong visually and have powerful soundtracks - videos designed to engage with audiences, 'memes' to spread via FaceBook and other social media.

Last night (Sunday 9 November) it was Tesco's turn to launch its campaign.  They booked a slot during the finale of Downton Abbey, something calculated to get them in front of 8-9 million people.  As the press has been quick to point out, if any retailer needs a profit boost right now it is Tesco. The advertisement is called Lights On, and at the time of writing has had 200,000 viewings on YouTube - a good performance in 12 hours, most of which were night time.

The Tesco hashtag on Twitter, #MakeChristmas has seen very little adoption, most of it being around the time of Downton Abbey.  Tesco's creative people use language which suggests ideas very similar to those put out by M&S last week: "doing all sorts of unexpected things to help people have a brilliant Christmas".  It is difficult to know what they have in mind: @tesco stopped tweeting some time after Downton Abbey finished, picking up again at 8:30 this morning when almost all the twitter traffic was mundane queries and complaints.

The #MakeChristmas hashtag seems to be doing little to help.  Once again, almost nothing overnight and the few uses it was getting seem to be ironic or mildly critical.   Take this from @BoringOleFart: "It would be great if your stores could just donate that wee bit more to local foodbanks". Is the video "Behind the scenes of the Tesco Christmas campaign" going to go viral? We doubt it. 244 views in a day is not encouraging. A useful little lesson for marketing students, though.