It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Pretty much all the (Christmas) cards are on the table, so over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving our comment and feedback on the efforts of some of the nation’s biggest retailers' Christmas advertising - remember it’s our thoughts that count ;)

#PureXmasAdWatch

So, let’s kick off with the big budget TV ad extravaganzas that have launched over the past week or so.

John Lewis’ bear is out of the cave to huge social and media acclaim. The #bearandhare ad has already amassed over 6.8 Million views on YouTube in just over 7 days.

M&S now stands for ‘Magic and Sparkle’ (apparently) and Sainsbury’s has wrapped Christmas Day up into a 3 and a half minute tearjerker.

Once we’ve digested these chunky ads, there’s Tesco, Boots, Morrisons, Debenham's, ASDA, Waitrose and plenty of others to get through….by which time we are well and truly stuffed like the proverbial turkey.

These big budget Xmas ads appear to have become the UK equivalent of the Superbowl advertising in America - and whilst incomparable in cost to the coveted Superbowl final ad break, one thing for certain is that the costs of the TV ads will be at an all-time high in the UK when considering the premium space. As announced recently, the X Factor final ad breaks will cost £200,000 per 30 seconds. This could net ITV somewhere in the region of £16 million. A nice present for their shareholders.

We will focus on the way advertisers are using press and the social media world in more depth in future blogs, but at this stage we are concentrating on TV, and rather than take the traditional powerhouse John Lewis as our primary candidate, we’re kicking off by taking a look at Sainsbury’s attempt at shaking things up slightly by promoting their TV ad as a film.

The ‘Taste the Difference’ brand waited until after the others had pulled their TV crackers and then started to promote the first airing of the ad in the press by directing newspaper readers to tune in and watch the ad.

The full film is reminiscent of Tinsel Town - 45 minutes long and due to have a premier as well as a release-date on YouTube. The campaign was launched in a 3 ½ minute trailer during Coronation Street. The length and exceptional nature of this media execution should ensure that it becomes a vanguard aspect of their campaign.

Repeating this ad length is clearly not sustainable or indeed possible to accommodate on Mainstream TV - so 40” and 60” spots based on different edits and themes will continue to run until 21^st December to follow on from the very strong groundwork already laid. 

M&S has a 150 second fantasy-story mash-up and the story-telling of John Lewis lasts a beefy 2 minutes but both pale in comparison to the size of this ad-break behemoth. Whether it proves a success is yet to be determined, as the multimedia element required for a successful Christmas campaign is becoming more important than ever before.

The Sainsbury’s ad delivers on  its highly successful pursuit of a ‘values-driven’ brand strategy, rather than focusing on product display, which is visible in the M&S effort and – more subtly – in the John Lewis version of Watership Down (I wonder how many alarm clocks they’ll sell this year..?).

It’s interesting how so many advertisers are choosing to focus on our emotions (trust, love, desire, greed, etc) as much as they are the cost or reliability in order to sell. ‘Value vs Values’ is a theme to keep an eye on as we head into the season of goodwill.