UK Christmas ad season kicks off with Very and Argos

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 2, 2018

UK retailers have started to unveil their Christmas ad campaigns with the TV commercials the big names come up with being seen as key to the overall success of their festive season marketing.

Shop Direct’s Very e-tailer will air its ad during an X-Factor commercial break on November 3 as well as during the Pride of Britain Awards on November 6. But it can already be seen on YouTube.

As previously for Very, it’s an animation. This time it’s called Elsie’s Gift and sees the protagonist, Elsie, who gets a Very gift (an astronaut's helmet) that inspires her to look at space exploration and become an astronaut when she grows up. Coming as we head towards next year’s 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon, it’s clearly aiming to get in quick with what’s likely to be a trending subject in 2019.

Shop Direct’s CMO said “the greatest gift you can give someone is the power to be whoever and whatever they want to be – and that’s what we’ve focused on this year.” The aim is to inspire consumers to find the one gift that could transform someone’s life.

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s-owned Argos is focusing on more practical considerations as it bigs-up its click & collect and same-day delivery offer. It airs for the first time on Friday during Coronation Street and Gogglebox.

The ad is a mix of animation and live action and is built around the animated character, the Christmas Fool, who’s the bad guy, potentially ruining Christmas by breaking things, stealing things and unwrapping presents ahead of time.

Argos foils the Fool when a Fast Track delivery driver traps it in his van and saves Christmas.

It’s a sensible focus for the company with survey after survey showing that delivery is front of mind for consumers, often more so than features such as price and product selection. Argos offers home delivery within four hours of orders being placed and also has over 1,0000 UK click & collect locations.