We are now well and truly on the way to Christmas. The month of December means it’s completely acceptable to don an embarrassing christmas jumper, belt out Buble & Mariah, and make mince pies and cinnamon flavoured coffee a morning staple.
As the festive spirit descends upon us, we are overwhelmed with advertising giants competing to impart as much festive cheer and overt emotional blackmail as possible.
Outdoor Advertising has particular advantages during the festive season as everyone is on high alert for christmas present deals and ideas – their ideal gift could be your product.
As crowds are drawn to cities in a feverish, festive purchasing frenzy, even more consumers are ‘on location’ to catch a glimpse of your ad. There are huge opportunities for inspiring gift ideas and influencing impulse purchases. OOH is even more emotive, creative, and powerful at Christmas time.
We’ve rounded up our top picks from past christmas OOH campaigns. From real tear-jerkers, to the wholesome, the heartfelt, and the damn right outrageous, we love to see how advertisers up their marketing game as competition intensifies. We’d love to take this opportunity to unashamedly promote our own OOH services around the Leeds area, with excellent reach, high impact, and unbeatable rates, there are good tidings to be had by all.
Lidl
Lidl launched a guerilla poster campaign which took the idea of competition and spun it on its head. Directly challenging more high end supermarkets Waitrose and M&S on their pricing and ‘quality guarantees.’
The retailer, working with their ad agency TBWA took current OOH posters from their rivals and overlaid an ad of their own showcasing the comparatively cheaper prices of their Deluxe range. Displaying the ads next to their rivals stores, the campaign shows that it pays to be daring and audacious.
Cadbury’s Pop-up Post Office
Outdoor Advertising doesn’t have to be contained to traditional billboard mediums. Cadbury’s pop-up post office is back for another year. The chocolate postal service will travel to Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool offering the public the chance to post the iconic purple bar to one of their loved ones.
You can choose a bar from the Dairy Milk range, including the seasonal Winter Wonderland choccie as well as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Whole Nut, Fruit and Nut and Caramel.
In the style of Secret Santa, the gift will be sent anonymously so your chosen receiver will be oblivious to who it came from.
More than 50,000 chocolate bars have been shipped so far so there are plenty to go around! But arrive early to avoid disappointment. Click here to find out when the pop up post office will be visiting your city.
Waitrose’s ‘Snowed In’
Waitrose, like Cadbury, chose to take their campaign physically into the public domain with their 2017 ‘Snowed In’ campaign. The supermarket giants showed their ad on a 30 minute loop in city centres across the UK, whilst showering passing shoppers in fake snow.
The last white christmas was nearly a decade ago in 2010, however this year, with a record-breakingly cold winter on the cards, our dreams may come true.
Share a Coke
The popular campaign – which I’m sure you’ll all be familiar with launched back in 2014 but has seen a return every year since. Initially launched in America, Coke researched the 250 most popular names and replaced their iconic logo with these names in the same font.
Consumers were encouraged to find bottles with names that held personal meaning to them, share them with friends and family, then tweet about their experiences, using the hashtag #ShareaCoke.
The campaign took off – who wouldn’t want their favourite caffeinated carbonated beverage branded with their own name? Quickly expanding into other countries, coke simply followed the same model, finding the most popular names in each region – increasing the number to 1000 as the campaign grew in demand.
Coca-Cola opened an e-commerce shop where consumers could order personalised bottles. Furthermore, song lyrics were added to the bottles’ packaging, letting fans share music, instead of just names.
In 2017, the company added a feature that let consumers hear a short jingle with their name in it. And in 2018, Coke made their now-iconic name labels removable stickers that could be fastened to clothing, cell phones, notebooks, and other items.
Personalisation, call to action, promotion through social media and creating a sense of community through the tagline #Shareacoke are all the reasons which made this campaign so successful.
Of course, this is not even Coca Cola’s most famous christmas ad, since as the advertising legends are responsible for the red colour of santa’s outfit. Though not the first to feature images of Mr Claus adorned in a soft red suit, they were responsible for making his image set and iconic.
Budweiser ‘Prohibition’
A campaign that is as refreshing as the 0% beverage it promotes. Bucking the trend of promoting alcohol fuelled festivities, Budweiser pushes for a sober christmas experience with the same Budweiser taste.
Featuring the ad on billboards, and handing our free samples on beer floats, budweiser turned to traditional methods in order to promote their alcohol-free beer.
Teaming up with the Department of Transport’s THINK road safety campaign, it’s nice to see an advert that promotes safety whilst pushing a new product – and all in time for Dry January!
TikTok’s Christmas Challenges
TikTok – the short form mobile video app, based closely on the same model as its much loved predecessor Vine has in fact taken over as, succeeding in maintaining its longevity and overtaking its success.
Tiktok’s huge international triumph is mostly due to tech savvy gen Z and X’ers, but millennials, Mums, army soldiers and even some of the older generation are jumping on the bandwagon. The app is looking to continue its expansion by launching a digital and social campaign, alongside a huge OOH effort.
Current and potential new Tiktok users are being set a series of festive challenges to complete using the app using various themed hashtags.
The one currently capturing imaginations is the “Christmas Explosion” tag. Content creators unleash a burst of christmas decor into their homes by removing the ‘lid’ off a bauble. Many of the videos also feature pets dressed up in antlers and red noses.
Stefan Heinrich, head of Tiktok’s global marketing said that they “really want to keep on building a positive and rewarding community, and use our resources to empower everyone to be creative.”
On the UK Christmas campaign, he said: “As a global community for self-expression, with easy video editing tools that enable anyone to share, interact and record real moments, we want TikTok to be part of this festive season and help people to celebrate this special holiday in a creative way. ”
We hope that you were inspired by some of the creative campaigns we featured in our round up. They go to show how a good marketing idea can inspire christmas cheer, instigate real change, influence social media trends, and bring joy to loved ones.
If you’d like to advertise your business or service, or have an idea you’d like to discuss with us, please give us a call on 0113 2311774 or email us at info@popartmediagroup.co.uk.
