Successful Christmas campaigns build brands by tapping into our emotions.
John Lewis is famous for their Christmas campaigns. The essence and value of these campaigns is in their ability to build an emotional connection with their audience to ensure the brand is in the audience consideration set when choosing a Christmas shopping retailer.
With a big brand approach, John Lewis develops a deep emotional connection integrated across tv, outdoor and print, and supported instore, merchandise, social, and public relations.
Roadmap Strategy’s favourite John Lewis Christmas Campaign remains the 2014 classic, Monty the Penguin.
Monty won hearts around the globe with a story of friendship, giving and of course love. The campaign performance metrics were off the charts, with over 350m social media views, soundtrack reached #3 on iTunes charts, 89% of tv audience had seen the ad at least once, and the campaign delivering GDP 141 incremental income for John Lewis.
However the 2014 John Lewis Monty the Penguin campaign, had an additional layer that made a real difference. Partnering with two charities, John Lewis promoted WWF’s Adopt a Penguin scheme to help support their work in conserving penguin habitat. In addition John Lewis donated a portion of every Monty the Penguin book sold to children’s charity Barnados’.
WWF reported a 350% increase in Penguin Adoptions, as a direct result of the campaign, and indirect value returned though awareness of the plight of penguin habitat, and knowledge of their broader adoption program.
John Lewis 2014 Christmas campaign is unquestionably one of the best they have delivered. It strengthened their brand, ensured they were in the consumers Christmas retailer consideration set and supported causes close to the audience’s heart.
Authenticity and connecting with your customers in an emotional way is where the magic happens. And this is never more pronounced and import as Christmas.
Roadmap Strategy is a niche marketing agency based in South Melbourne. We welcome the opportunity to develop your next campaign and get the rubber hitting the road, and helping you achieve your business goals.
Smart brands don't go dark
When the people couldn’t visit the little penguins at Phillip Island, Phillip Island took the penguins into lounge rooms across the globe - 25 million times.
Madeline Blaer, Monash University uncovered a number of insights from this virtual initiative that included; watching the penguins became a ritual for people, helped people cope during lockdown, built communities, audiences built relationships with Rangers wanting to visit to meet them, conservation messages connected and the audience took action, and the initiative positively influenced future visitation from intrastate, interstate and overseas.
Phillip Island Penguin Parade did not go dark. They built stronger relationships with existing visitors, amplified their voice globally when competitor brands fell silent, and built their brand awareness and knowledge.
Phillip Island Nature Park grew their share of voice in a mostly silent market, as a result the little penguins and Phillip Island have entered the consideration set of a higher proportion of consumers.
Congratulations Phillip Island Nature Park on an exceptional industry leading marketing initiative.
If you need a hand developing with your marketing or brand strategy, or next marketing campaign, give Alison McDowell a call to discuss how Roadmap Strategy help you get the rubber hitting the road and your business achieving their marketing and business goals.
How to choose the right advertising channels
Consumers are served over 10,000 advertisements every day.
Understanding how to develop and execute an advertising strategy that will cut through the noise, and achieve your desired advertising goals is more important than ever.
Success relies on a number of factors including; your brand, your target market, your creative, getting the media mix right, and of course your budget.
It’s about constructing integrated messaging across the right media, that seamlessly engages the target audience. And when you get this right, your audience responds, and you achieve the desired goals for your company.
Here are some tips to consider
Budget - Be clear on your budget. This will help you prioritize the channels that will give you the best return, and achieve your campaign goals.
Know your audience – Have a deep understanding of your target market, know who they are, where they are, how they consume media, understand their values and how to speak to them.
Good creative and messaging will make your campaign – work with the best agency you can afford. Develop a solid brand and creative platform and stick with it – remember you’ll get tired of you creative before your consumers have even caught on to it.
Know your competitors – Know what they are doing, where they are advertising and if it is working. Don’t be obsessed, but learn, listen and leverage.
Be clear on your advertising objectives - Prepare a cracking brief – the best briefs return the rockstar status work. And ensure your product, brand, and value proposition are clearly defined.
Be brave– your media choice will be informed by your brief, budget, product and brand. At all times keep the customer at the centre of your media decision making, and think beyond social media and digital - traditional media will often deliver better cut through in a less cluttered market . And be brave, test and trial new media .
Measure, measure, measure – Measuring and monitoring the performance of your advertising is critical to allow you to adjust your advertising strategy to continually improve performance
When you reach the right person, at the right time with the right message you will achieve your goals.
If you need a hand developing your advertising plan, creative and messaging, give Alison McDowell a call to and let Roadmap Strategy help take away the pain and get the rubber hitting the road.