Does John Lewis even sell telescopes?

Christmas ads and the purpose of advertising

When I was in primary school, a substitute teacher tried to run a trendy lesson plan with us that involved designing an advert to teach us about media. My attempt was a small rodent wearing trainers running on a hamster wheel — always a copywriter, even back then…

“Could it be that John Lewis is actually spending £7 million putting customers off buying from them?”

The teacher’s response was surprise that I had taken a scant brief and created something far more elaborate than the task entailed — I get that a lot — and she mumbled something about how it was good because the image had nothing to do with the product it was selling. I nodded sagely, but sighed internally that she had missed the entire point:

The trainers were good for a hamster that ran and ran in the same place all day, implying that they were hard-wearing. The image may have been unexpected, but it very much had something to do with the product it was selling.

I was reminded of this over the holidays while watching a string of Christmas adverts that had a hell of a lot more to do with Christmas than the actual product they were selling…

Buy this thing!

Of course, we realised long ago that there was a great deal more to advertising than “buy this thing!” and how direct to be is very much the art of modern advertising. It’s a viable strategy to simply create an attractive piece of content that people enjoy and associate that with your brand. It’s been proven that people will then associate your brand with good things and buy from you.

This is the entire purpose of sponsorship. Cadbury once spent money to associate itself with Coronation Street, while Red Bull have done everything from planes flying around slaloms to astronauts parachuting from space to raise awareness of its brand. The key here, however, is that Red Bull plastered its branding across everything to do with its events and Coronation Street had two adverts for Cadbury in every break. Sometimes, however, advertisers get so carried away with their content or event they forget to actually advertise their brand…

John Lewis has made a tradition of releasing a high-budget Christmas ad that tugs at the heart strings and immediately goes viral every year. The key question here is: does it improve their sales?

The halo effect

The Guardian says that JLP, which owns John Lewis, reported a 26% drop in profits, despite higher sales, in September, so you’d think they might be trying to trim down their expenses. JLP, however, maintains the common marketing wisdom that their £7 million Christmas ads, which have been running since 2007, create a “halo effect”, making their brand look good, despite maybe not immediately increasing sales.

The crushing blow to that theory is the fact that last year’s ad, featuring a cuddly penguin called Monty, made them an estimated £18 million in sales of a cuddly Monty toy, despite it being priced at £95 each, according to the Independent. Now imagine if they had spent £7 million on an advert that, you know, sold their products?

Even worse, if you watch this year’s Christmas video again, you’ll see that the actual thrust of the advert has very little to do with their brand. The people watching Coronation Street are the people that tend to buy Cadbury products and the adrenaline junkies Red Bull are appealing to probably drink energy drinks, but could we say for certain that most John Lewis customers have elderly relatives and young children? Are they trying to get astronomy enthusiasts to get their telescopes in department stores (yes, they do sell them)?

The point, of course, is to overcome consumers’ ad-blindness by persuading them we’re not trying to sell to them. We cynically ignore any media that tries to get us to do anything in any obvious way, so advertising has to use the halo effect to be more opaque. Hence, the top two Christmas ads were both for charity this year. While we’re all happy that money is going to these charities, though, unless the businesses being advertised is making money from the advert, then there will be no money to carry on making them and the charities will get nothing, so it’s in everyone’s best interest for them to drive sales.

I mean, we know the halo effect works, there are studies proving it, but I can’t help but feel clever creatives are getting their artwork £7 million budgets by quoting this buzz term at meetings. After all, it’s pretty hard to prove that the ads aren’t generating a “halo” and it must be pretty nice for CEOs to see an ad for their company posted all over social media. Still, might a more-traditional approach be more effective?

Old-fashioned selling

Marks and Spencer Christmas ads are usually, on the other hand, a video catalogue, very abstract and very Christmassy, but still completely focused on their products. It may not go viral, but not a year goes by that my wife doesn’t spot some dress or handbag she wants in the M&S Christmas ad and there is a direct link between that and a visit to M&S to have a look at it in store.

It’s a very old-fashioned way of advertising, but it still works. After all, the M&S ad may not have been anywhere near as popular as John Lewis’, but it still got 2.5 million hits on YouTube alone. The problem for John Lewis is that hits don’t necessarily equate to cold, hard cash.

Nevertheless, M&S is expected to report dismal sales this Christmas, according to the FT, while John Lewis is reporting quite the opposite, but does that have anything to do with its advert, or is it simply because John Lewis promise to have the lowest prices on everything, so are near bankrupting themselves to live up to that motto, as analysts believe?

When it goes wrong…

Given the insane amount of work that went into crafting a beautiful advert for John Lewis, it’s actually pretty difficult to analyse it objectively, so why don’t we take a look at halo marketing done very, very badly?

I’m trying to think of a way to editorialise on that ad and I really can’t think of anything to say that you won’t already be thinking. Of course, the press are assuming this is a parody video, but as one commenter points out — a parody of what?

Putting the quality and intention of the ad aside, the point is actually pretty clear: set Robert Dyas up as a supporter of LGBT (well, again as one commenter pointed out, not “T”) rights, not just to attract LGBT customers, but also to make Dyas look like they are a moral entity taking a stand regardless of their profit margins. Watching this, however, you can see just how off-putting that kind of pretension can be to customers.

Does it actually work?

Indeed, every John Lewis Christmas ad generates as many “what the hell is this about?” comments as it does positive ones. How many of those viral shares are people complaining about how saccharine it is? Could it be that John Lewis is actually spending £7 million putting customers off buying from them?

Even if the advert is working as intended, is it actually driving the people who did enjoy it into a branch of John Lewis or onto their website? Well, it’s hard to argue with those sales figures, but what you can debate is whether it’s worth spending £7 million a year on something you can’t prove actually makes any money back.

Of course, I hear the marketing gurus yelling “that’s the point! Stop thinking about your profit margins and start thinking about buzz phrases like ‘brand synergy’ and ‘user experience’. Get with the now, man!”

Well, they are right. Halo marketing works and, even if it’s not driving your customers to buy, it can make them happy about buying from you, which can help you with all kinds of less-tangible things like customer loyalty, PR, staff motivation and the severity of complaints.

Blue Santas

The classic example is the infamous WestJet advert from a couple years ago — the mother of all Christmas viral marketing. If anything, it’s even more saccharine than the John Lewis ad, but it is absolutely linked to airline travel and the people being shown to benefit from the company’s generosity are its own customers. This is halo-effect marketing done right:

It’s okay to be honest

Still, it is entirely possible to create beautiful content that is relevant to your brand and still conveys a hard sales message. You don’t have to act like a charity to look good to your customers. Ultimately, you are a business and it’s okay to be honest about that. You can overcome ad-blindness by being frank and open about your intentions. Check out this ad from Aldi:

It’s hard to be more upfront about prices and selling than the Aldi adverts. They use the same format every time, with a simple message — not as good, but nice enough and a hell of a lot cheaper. They’re not pretending they’re about anything other than undercutting the market. Even better, Aldi are intentionally mocking John Lewis for their pretentious attempt to toy with their customers’ emotions.

By the by, Aldi’s sales figures increased 31% in 2014, and its profits were only down because it opened 65 new stores last year, according to Business Quarter. Record sales, higher profits and expansion, all without spending £7 million on a Christmas ad…

This gentle ribbing of its competition, along with a focus on offering consumers good prices, generates its own halo effect, while still selling Aldi’s products. Likewise, Sainsbury managed to pip JLP to the post this year, earning the most hits on YouTube for their Christmas ad.

Of course, it’s still a halo marketing attempt with very little reference to the product, but it’s hard to miss the extreme close-up of a bag of oranges. It does feature Christmas food, even just subliminally, which is something Sainsbury is trying to sell to people. The subtle implication is that you need lots of food to stop Christmas being a disaster. It’s a lovely piece of content with a charitable message, one more successful than John Lewis’, but it’s still trying to sell the product, even just a bit.

Sprouts and crumpets

Pushing this further, it’s entirely possible to create a fun little Christmas-themed short film that showcases the benefits of your product. Sky Movies’ ad is completely seasonal, compelling and amusing, but it still illustrates what Sky Movies can offer you at Christmas — a bunch of movies you want to see and happy kids sitting quietly, watching them:

On the other hand, while it may only have a fraction of the views of its competitors, a Millward Brown study found that Warburton’s attempt was the Christmas ad most likely to actually get people to buy from the advertiser, according to The Drum, and it’s easy to see why:

This is a big, high-budget, fun ad that manages to be seasonal simply by those virtues without milking the Christmas spirit or being saccharine. Above all else, though, it’s actually about the blooming product! The message is still “Warburtons sell giant crumpets” and who doesn’t want giant crumpets?

Target your halo

Indeed, while Sainsbury’s fall in profits this year was far less than analysts expected, given the state of the supermarket industry, the most virally shared advert this Christmas still couldn’t save them from taking a hit, so says the Telegraph. Time will tell what the more-direct adverts have done for Warburtons and Sky Movies, but ultimately, with no sales evidence showing a correlation between halo-effect Christmas ads and sales, it’s a gamble.

Ultimately, I’m not saying that viral Christmas ads aren’t worthwhile, simply that without hard evidence, it’s worth hedging your bets on an ad that creates a halo effect and drives sales at the same time. At the very least, make sure your advert centres its halo directly over your company by linking your brand and industry to the content.