To follow that success, Asda knew it had to turn to another holiday icon: “Last year we tied ourselves to the best Christmas film, and this year it’s the best Christmas singer,” said Rob Weston, vice-president of marketing.
The brief for the campaign also shifted slightly to emphasize product quality, whereas the retailer is typically associated with low prices. Over the past year, Asda has invested about $121.9 million (£100m) in improving the quality and price of its products.
For the Christmas season specifically, it will roll out 250 new products, as well as bringing back customer favorites from last year such as the maple pigs in blankets.
Asda declined to disclose how much it spent on this year’s ad campaign, but the stakes are high in a retail market that remains “as challenging” as last year due to persisting high inflation, said Asda’s chief customer officer, David Hills.
“The investment we’ve made in quality puts us in a great position as we trade into Christmas,” Hills added.
Spreading cheer
To deliver its message, “we needed a quality vehicle,” explained Vicki Maguire, chief creative officer of Havas London. Bublé was the ideal person for the job because “he’s just Christmas,” she said.
At the commercial shoot in London, Bublé and Waititi riffed many of the lines that appear in the final film. “It was a real bromance [between them],” Brett-Lee recalled.
Unlike last year’s ad, in which Asda was restricted to using original footage from Elf and had to rotoscope Buddy into scenes, Bublé lends himself well to a fuller array of marketing content. He will appear in shorter videos, GIFs and food-focused posts across Asda’s social channels for the duration of the campaign.
In the final scene, Bublé convenes a group of Asda employees outside a store for a Winter Wonderland sing-along.
“We have to deliver a Christmas to our customers that won’t disappoint but gives them the confidence and trust to not go anywhere else,” Maguire said. “Nobody wants to drop Christmas, regardless of how hard your year has been. We’ll do everything we can to add to the LOLs or warmth and hugs.”
CREDITS:
