Christmas is a time for giving, spending time with the ones you hold dear and giving thanks. It’s also the one time of year where brands spend big to get their share of our wallets, well what we have left of them! This year it’s especially apparent that festive fun, with its associated sparkle, has been replaced by emotive story telling.
Now I know that this is always the case for John Lewis; from the bear and the hare in 2013, to the man on the moon in 2015 to this year’s Moz the Monster. But its seems like many consumer brands are now fully on board with emotive engagement. Take the ‘This Christmas, let’s spend it well’ campaign from M&S as an example. Not only does this campaign feature everyone’s favourite marmalade loving bear, but it shows how good can overcome evil at Christmas through love and the gift of giving. It’s a feel-good campaign and is quite a step change from the days when Take That and Twiggy were the shining stars of the retailers Christmas ads.
Various studies over the years have shown that “emotional appeals in advertising strategies have been known to help in strengthening the brands as they add another distinction to the brand.” (1) Going back to the M&S campaign with the strapline ‘This Christmas, let’s spend it well’, it’s about making the right choice. You might say that the not so subtle takeout is that by shopping at M&S you will be spending your money well. I must admit this campaign has worked on me…. earlier I got carried away writing a list of food I can buy in M&S that will help me not spend so much time in the kitchen on Christmas Day, thus spending my time well.
Morrisons have indulged in family story telling this year with a series of ads celebrating families spending time together at Christmas. The most aired one is a brother encouraging his little sister to ‘go on’, including to ‘go on’ and grab a delicious cake as they are gluten free. This is quite a clever move from Morrisons promoting their gluten free Christmas range and I’m really interested to see how this fares for them. Their family story telling focuses upon emotional differentiation which many studies have shown provides a competitive edge. They aren’t saying that they’ve got the best food, but they are saying we understand you and look, we help families like you every Christmas. As Heath’s study (2009) evidenced, emotionally appealing advertisements aid brand relationships and emotional content tends to be “more successful than rationally appealing messages in generating brand favouritism.” I won’t be buying gluten free goodies from Morrisons but it’s where I will do the majority of my grocery shop – not so much as a result of the advertising but I like my Morrsions More card (a future blog on engagement and loyalty strategies in the New Year?).
Another great example of this storytelling is the BBC’s ‘Christmas Together’ campaign. This cleverly plays out a story of a single father who appears to put work before his daughter, however at her Christmas concert he shows that he does care and is paying attention. I am embarrassed to admit that the first time I watched the full ad, I actually cried. I’m not sure if it makes me want to watch the BBC channels more (to be fair I’m not good at working our fancy tech remote!), but it does make me think that the BBC are trying hard to understand and cater for a variety of families and provide programmes that will bring them together this year.
In my opinion, the ads this year are more effective in evoking positive emotions. I can remember the Asda ‘Mum is behind it’ campaign back in 2012. That stirred anger across the nation; no mum would like to think that they are permanently stressed in the build-up to Christmas. It may be true, but don’t tell us! Brands need to fill our hearts with joy and let us share in their magic at Christmas. Personally, I can’t wait to hear about the ROI on this year’s Christmas campaign spend…. I really hope Paddington does the trick for M&S this year as they have put the effort (and cash) in. I can even buy Paddington jelly sweets in Christmas packaging so I’m sold!
(1) Panda et al., 2013, ‘Does emotional appeal work in advertising?’, IUP Journal of Brand Management, Vol.10, No.2, pp. 7-23.
(2) Heath, R., 2009, ‘Emotional engagement: how television builds big brands at low attention’, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 49, No.1, pp. 62-63.
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