Supermarkets release very different ads, united by storytelling
Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s have released very different Christmas ads, yet storytelling remains paramount.
Over the past few years, Christmas ads were fairly predictable in tone.
This year, however, Tesco has made a road movie, Sainsbury’s an action adventure, Asda a festive rave, while Tesco Ireland is mining childhood wonder.
Magic comes in many forms
The most restrained of the bunch is arguably the most ambitious. Tesco’s The Wrong Address has a premise akin to an indie film. Created by BBH London, the film sees Lizzie (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) accidentally send her Christmas grocery order to an old address, miles away.
The Tesco driver who receives the order, Polly (played by Roisin Conaty) recognises her name because they were school friends who haven’t seen each other in years. Polly offers to meet Lizzie halfway. Lizzie’s car promptly lets her down. And what begins as a mildly inconvenient grocery mix-up turns into an unexpected road trip and reconciliation.
Director Steve Rogers gives the three-minute film unusual breathing room.
Christmas is sort of incidental to the proceedings, and it explores a fairly unique Christmas plot line: the awkwardness of meeting someone you once knew after you’ve undergone significant change.
The Police’s ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ provides some familiarity, but we reckon this one stands out for its originality. “Every Little Helps” consequently gets subverted: the ‘help’ is the favour.
Shelves and imaginary(?) elves
Tesco Ireland is also notable this year, given that it hasn’t released a Christmas ad for ten years.
Although it explores Tesco’s employees, it’s a long shot from Tesco’s other film. BBH Dublin’s ‘Helping Christmas Feel Magic’ has a fairly simple premise: perhaps the man stacking shelves really is an elf.
The ad follows a young boy who becomes convinced that a helpful Tesco colleague is secretly an elf.
The adults see a regular employee, but the boy is less convinced as he stacks mounting evidence that Santa has infiltrated Irish retail.
Directed by Elliott Power through Love Song and Assembly, and filmed at Tesco Naas Extra and Tesco Celbridge in Co Kildare, the film wisely avoids proving the child right. It’s more about the magic of the wee lad’s imagination, you see.
Like the above Tesco ad, the low-key message here is that Tesco colleagues are helpful folk. But that’s about where the similarities end.
Christmas becomes an action franchise
Where Tesco has shown restraint, Sainsbury’s makes everything enormous.
The BFG returns for the supermarket’s third consecutive festive outing, inspired by Roald Dahl’s world.
Rather than simply repeating the previous formula, New Commercial Arts and director Sam Brown send the action properly into Giant Country. The BFG is ill and fears missing Christmas. Returning Sainsbury’s colleague Annie and delivery driver Fred therefore load up a van with festive food and take Christmas to him.
The action picks up a bit here after a slow start. Greedy Giant attempts to intercept the food. His mouth becomes a tunnel. There are snozzcumbers, a giant Squizzly Scotch-Hopper, a pursuit and even a role for Brussels sprouts in seeing off their oversized adversary.
Electric Theatre Collective’s VFX are doing impressive work here, and we expect to see more animated Christmas offerings this season.
Sainsbury’s Christmas relationship with the BFG is now feeling like more of a franchise. And why not?
Asda turns the Christmas party up to 11
Asda brings things back to the homestead, or the living room, with its maximalist offering.
Lucky Generals’ ‘All of Christmas at Asda Price. Boom!’ abandons the emotional Christmas epic in favour of a series of films built around familiar shopping missions including hosting, decorating, gifting, grocery shopping and Christmas dinner.
The formula is fairly familiar compared to the more ambitious efforts above. Price tags hover over the products, and then a bit of drama is added as a beat drops to put us in a celebratory mood: Martin Garrix’s ‘Animals’, to be precise.
Suddenly there are strobes, frantic dancing and the like.
Director Finn Keenan, working through Riff Raff Films, rekindles the familiar ‘Asda Price’, one of British retail advertising’s most famous devices.
Christmas this year in Adland has started unpredictably in terms of overriding themes, but brand stories and human stories are paramount—so far at least.
Credits
Tesco, The Wrong Address
Agency: BBH London
Director: Steve Rogers
Production: Biscuit Filmworks UK x Revolver
Starring: Roisin Conaty and Anna Maxwell Martin
Tesco Ireland, Helping Christmas Feel Magic
Agency: BBH Dublin
Director: Elliott Power
Production: Love Song / Assembly
Music: Miink
Asda, All of Christmas at Asda Price. Boom!
Agency: Lucky Generals
Director: Finn Keenan
Production: Riff Raff Films
Sainsbury’s, BFG Christmas campaign
Agency: New Commercial Arts
Creative directors: Dan Bailey and Brad Woolf
Director: Sam Brown
Production: Rogue Films
VFX: Electric Theatre Collective
Music: Manderley Music
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