Making brands more distinctive

The usual slew of Christmas adverts is coming thick and fast. Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose et al have begun force-feeding us their usual heart-warming Christmas fayre.

This normally prompts much debate in the office with two camps usually emerging. Those who favour the heart-warming (cue John Lewis’ lovelorn snowman traipsing across the country to get his snowy beau a pair of gloves) and those who enjoy the hard edged and commercial  – see Aldi’s comparison-led and slightly cynical “ours are cheaper but just as good” ads.

My favourite falls between both camps. Surprisingly it’s Sainsbury’s, who’ve ditched the cheeky cockney Jamie Oliver, (gawd bless ‘im) for a down to earth peek at family life across the Christmas season. We see kids acting on their very best behaviour, to the bemusement of their family, in the hope of influencing Santa. Greedy lads polish off the mince pies and put the empty box back in the cupboard and women arrive home from epic shopping trips to reward themselves with an early opening of the Christmas chocs because, and here’s the best bit, they can always buy some more. And that’s the beauty of the Sainsbury’s ads for me. Their purpose is not to simply bring a tear to our eyes or warm the cockles of my stony heart but to get us to by MORE! Not simply buy from them rather than a competitor, but buy MORE! The ads are gentle and recognise a truth in all our Christmases, which is a great start as we can ally ourselves to the brand – Sainsburys understand us! But the key message is buy, buy, buy. The perfect mix of salient wit and hard-headedness. And that folks is what good advertising should be. There’s a link to the ads here. Happy shopping.

Joe