26-27_David Robertson.qxp_Grid 04/12/2023 12:50 Page 1
OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
Take an operatic maestro, mix in a heartfelt story with a clear message, throw in a cute central character - carrot/llama/oven glove/bag for life/racoon/snapper plant - add a dash of social responsibility which strengthens their message and finally garnish with a tagline that allows it to be hash-tagged around the world and there you have it – a Christmas TV advert. As our sector embraces the Cardmitment campaign, I binge watched over 50 of this year’s Christmas commercials for some festive takeaways. Below: Amazon’s Christmas advert was lauded for its tone.
Don’t blowtorch the Christmas glow Over the last decade Christmas TV ads have become headline worthy attractions in their own right. They have become mini epics, trailed like a major cinema release. I heard that between M&S, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis and other major supermarkets/brands some £9.5 billion will be spent on festive commercials this year. Iceland, with its finger firmly on the pulse, has read the temperature in the room (important if you specialise in frozen food!) and decided against fancy ads and have pledged instead to slash prices to help hard up Brits enjoy their Christmas. I get this, but as someone who consumes and loves TV, I personally love the ads. The days of consumer adverts actually showing a product and highlighting its good
points seem to have passed. Now it is about emotion. A tug of war on people’s heartstrings. It is about the brand trying to relate to its audience. How we react to ads and specifically short bursts of online video has become crucial to how we then perceive that brand or product. This means that as indie retailers we can’t expect that an advert in the local paper with one product and our shop logo to have any real type of impact. Like others, we stopped this years ago and have instead looked at different options with social media, events, in-house branding and
Above: David Robertson surrounded by Christmas loveliness in one of the Pozzi shops. Left: John Lewis’ advert was well received.
26 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
sponsorship all being instrumental in aligning our business with our customers, with emotional connections being key. The Christmas adverts from the major retailers and big brands want to evoke a true reaction/emotional response as this determines how successful their business/brand will be viewed and thought of, not only immediately, but in the long term. We make decisions based on emotions and we validate them with logic. Companies such as H&M for example don’t really want you to buy all the farm animal new outfits they feature in their commercial, what they are really saying is that the products they sell are so reasonably priced you could buy everyone something new. In its Christmas ad, Waitrose is basically saying it is only a proper fancy party if the food is from us! They don’t say either of those things of course, it is all subliminal messaging, with sprinkling of humour and a little bit of selfdepreciation going a long way. In the past we have done product coffee mornings, themed shopping evenings, discount nights and co-promoted with other