Christmas Campaigns: The rise of integrated marketing

The Christmas campaign has undeniably become one of the most anticipated events on the marketing calendar. But with the market becoming increasingly saturated, how are companies making themselves stand out?

You only need to hear the stats surrounding John Lewis’ campaign to understand the magnitude and reach of an advert. After releasing their ‘Man on the Moon’ advert on 6^th November 2015, it had over 6 million views on You Tube in the first 24 hours and according to data from BrandWatch, it was mentioned more than 23,000 times on social media in the two hours after its launch.

The Christmas advert is seen as a milestone for many; the start of the festive season. For example, when you see the Coca Cola advert ‘Holidays are Coming’ – you know Christmas is just around the corner, and hordes of people take to social media to tell us just that.

However, today, having a big budget television advert alone isn’t necessarily enough. Companies have started to use an integrated approach across lots of platforms to get the most reach out of their campaign.

A recent example of this is Asda who have launched their ‘most digital campaign ever’ to try and stand out from their rivals. Their television ad was launched on 1^st November and will be showcased between Xfactor advert breaks to get a guaranteed reach.

On top of this traditional approach, the Christmas campaign will be Asda’s most significant presence on Instagram to date. Asda will use Instagram to reveal a product from their Christmas food range every day up until Christmas day. This will start to create anticipation and a buzz from customers. Asda will also launch activity across YouTube, Twitter, and Google and have 3D billboards showcasing antlers and Christmas Trees which will be put up in Leeds and Manchester. They will use the hashtag #BecauseitsChristmas across the campaign including print and social media.

Barry Williams, Asda’s chief customer officer said, “It’s a cracker of a campaign – it’s about indulging on quality food, fantastic decorations, fun clothes and incredible efforts to get together, and depicts it all with personality”.

John Lewis have also been known to cross platforms with their Christmas campaigns by selling products in store related to the advert. Last year Monty-mania hit when John Lewis created soft toy versions of the penguins from their 2014 advert. It was reported that it took less than 24 hours for the penguins to sell out showing how invested people are in the whole campaign.

This year Cadburys have taken a new experiential approach to make them stand out from the rest and engage customers on another level.

Cadburys are launching a real-life advent calendar and aim to bring it to life by sending 24 trucks around the UK which will each be packed with a surprise. Steven Chick, Mondelez brand manager said, “Like an advent calendar it’s a new surprise every day. We also won’t be announcing the route plan or location in advance.”

Cadburys will then take content from each event and stream it across their social media platforms. This approach means that they will create content as they go and it will have a customer-focus as it will be consumer generated.

With such a shift in the way Christmas is marketed to customers, it will be interesting to see which approach has the highest return. Whatever the answer, this is set to change the landscape of the Christmas campaign and how other brands will start market themselves in future.