Sainsbury's: Sharing The Gift Of Reading At Christmas

Credits & Description:

Title: Sharing The Gift Of Reading At Christmas
Agency: Amvbbdo, Phd, Analogfolk
Brand: Sainsburys
Country: United Kingdom
Advertising Agency: Analogfolk, London
Entrant Company: Phd, London
Media Agency: Phd, London
Pr Agency: Phd, London
Production Company: Amvbbdo, London
Additional Company: Amvbbdo, London
Strategy Director: Doug Baker (Analogfolk)
Account Director: James Campbell (Amv Bbdo)
Media Manager: Liam Doyle (Phd)
Producer: Rebecca Scharf (Amv Bbdo)
Project Director: Sohni Gogel (Analogfolk)
Board Account Director: Gemma Findlay (Amv Bbdo)
Executive Creative Director: Alex Grieve (Amv Bbdo)
Executive Creative Director: Adrian Rossi (Amv Bbdo)
Media Group Manager: Chris Magniac (Phd)
Creative: Matt Mitchell (Analogfolk)
Client Partner: Sarah Mamou (Analogfolk)
Executive Creative Director: Simon Richings (Analogfolk)
Creative Director: Alistair Mcknight (Analogfolk)
Business Director: Becca Bunbury (Phd)
Strategy Director: Cat Wiles (Amv Bbdo)
Senior Producer: Mandy Watt (Analogfolk)
Managing Partner: Anna Hancock (Phd)
Creative: Matt Seccombe (Analogfolk)
Account Director: Lucy Cole (Amv Bbdo)
Head Of Planning: Michael Florence (Phd)
Synopsis:
In the face of competition from the growing grocery discounters Lidl and Aldi, Sainsbury’s entered Christmas 2015 with industry commentators predicting a tough Christmas trading period ahead for the four biggest UK supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons) However, with Christmas becoming the UK’s “Superbowl moment”, Sainsbury’s didn’t just need to create a Christmas campaign that delivered commercial success. Our research learnings from previous years showed that it also needed to deliver a campaign that consumers could engage with at a level beyond mere advertising. With Sainsbury’s proposition of ‘Christmas is for Sharing’ at the heart of our strategic approach, the objectives for this campaign were twofold: 1. To launch a Christmas campaign that would get families to share quality time together 2. To deliver a commercially successful Christmas that would increase Sainsbury’s market share.
Outcome:
Mog’s Christmas Calamity became the UK’s most watched Christmas TV campaign ever, being viewed 30m times on YouTube (20% more times than John Lewis) Mog had captured a nation’s imagination and the campaign delivered for both the literacy campaign and Sainsbury’s business. ENGAGING THE UK IN THE LITERACY FIGHT • The large-scale launch strategy worked immediately. 39 copies of the book were sold EVERY MINUTE from launch and the soft toy sold out. • Mog’s Christmas Calamity went on to sell 450,000 copies - making it the No.1 selling book in the UK for FOUR WEEKS (the bestselling book of ANY kind, not just the bestselling children’s book). • The campaign helped raise over £1.6m for Save the Children to support their literacy work in the UK. DELIVERING A COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL CHRISTMAS • Post-Christmas, Sainsbury’s purchase consideration increased by 4% and it was the only major supermarket to increase its market share YOYDELIVERING A COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL CHRISTMAS:Post-Christmas, Sainsbury’s purchase consideration increased by 4% and it was the only major supermarket to increase its market share YOY.
Execution:
To launch the campaign, Mog’s Christmas Calamity was turned into a 3½ minute TV ad.At 7.15pm on Nov 12th, it simultaneously launched across an entire ad-break on 83 DIFFERENT TV channels. This enabled 84% of UK television viewers to see it in just one break.At that moment, the book was unveiled in every Sainsbury’s store in the UK and we launched a fully optimised paid social campaign across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to maximise non-TV views of the film. In the run up to Christmas:•Sainsbury’s colleagues read the book at local schools•we created a ‘karaoke’ Skype version of the book so parents could record a video version of the story for their kids to enjoy when they weren’t around,•and parents submitted video of themselves reading the book to their children. These were then turned into a new TV ad that concluded the campaign.
Strategy:
Essentially targeting every family in the UK meant that we needed Mog’s story to be told at scale across multiple family touchpoints – from in-store to inside classrooms. Our previous experience of launching Christmas campaigns also told us that our media strategy needed to address three key issues:1)LAUNCH WITH A BANG - the first 48 hours are key to engaging shoppers for the duration of the Christmas run up. That meant we needed an ambitious large-scale launch plan.2)WE COULDN’T RELY ON BEING A ‘VIRAL’ HIT - we needed to ensure that every part of our campaign was supported by a paid digital media plan that navigated our audience to Mog’s story3)GIVE THEM MORE – our campaign needed to be more than just advertising. We would need to add depth to it by creating additional content (promote that content through paid media too).
Campaign Description:
The average UK parent now spends just 34 undistracted minutes with their children every day - making ‘quality’ family time one of the most precious gifts that a British parent could receive.But how could Sainsbury’s deliver it?With the UK having the 2nd worst child literacy record in Europe, our solution was to create a new story to help families share the joy of reading.We collaborated with Judith Kerr, the celebrated children’s author who had written 16 best-selling books about a forgetful cat called Mog, to write a new Mog book that would enchant a new generation of children and bring back fond memories for parents who had read the originals.The result was Mog’s Christmas Calamity – a new book that brought the spirit of sharing at Christmas to life and whose sales would raise money for Save the Children’s UK literacy programmes in the process.