Broad, Populist and Authentic: What Great Retail Advertising Can Teach Us
Speaking on the Gerety Talks Retail Advertising panel this week, hosted b MSQ Partners and moderated by LBB, Jamie Peate observes that “retail’s like pinball” while other categories are more like 10-pin bowling in their advertising approach – lining up a shot, making sure it’s on target and then making a slow, decisive move. As global head of retail and effectiveness for McCann Worldgroup, he sees how responsive and immediate retail advertising needs to be as something that encourages a certain kind of ‘retail mindset’. While always being aware of the brand-building goals in the long term, there’s a lot to be dealt with in the short term in this fast-paced category. Having worked on this kind of brand for many years, Jamie admitted that it’s a pace that can become quite addictive.
“I’m definitely an addict,” agreed Cressida Holmes-Smith, CEO at Lucky Generals. She added defining a retail brand is difficult though, as the space between retail and service becomes blurred. Brands that might have been considered retail are introducing service functions, becoming subscription or membership based. Lucky Generals has worked frequently with Amazon, which consumers are prepared to subscribe to as a service, she noted. “Retailers are becoming more about a service, whether that's an experience in store, or that's online expecting a service from a retailer, not just going there to buy a product.”
One reason that works so well, observed Jamie, is that retail brands have so often had a close relationship with their customers. People directly interact with a shop, whether in real life or online, and that’s enviable for any business. “A lot of other brands are moving to that retail mindset where you have a more intimate and direct relationship with your customer,” he said.
Taking forward the conversation about where retail advertising is right now, Kit Altin, chief strategy officer at The Gate London, spoke about how the economic pressures of today are playing out in these brands. Her agency has worked closely with Very, whose customers are particularly value conscious, but noted that it can be a trap to think in simplistic terms about people having less money to spend. Nuanced thinking about things like how much debt people have, affecting how flexible they can be with their spending – or interestingly, “how much they're able to be in the moment versus how much they're able to project into the future,” she said. “It's really powerful because what retail is really good at is understanding seasonality, understanding the drumbeat of people's lives. And so the shifts in the economy have really profound effects on that from not just ‘who am I right now’, but ‘in the near future, who do I want to be?’. That way of understanding customers’ lives leads to retail advertising that connects, she suggested.
It’s something that Kit points to in 2023’s crop of Christmas ads and some of the reactions to them. “People are prepared to take a little bit of tweaking to their traditions, but not too much, because right now the whole world feels like an absolutely massive omnishambles.”
As a result, a common thread that Bonita Samuels, senior associate director at EssenceMediacom, has noticed running through a lot of recent retail advertising is brands avoiding reminding people of the more disheartening facts of life in today’s world. Instead of telling people that they know they don’t have much money to spend, the focus has been on bringing joy into people’s lives, “not tapping into that doom and gloom,” she said, “not saying we can save you money, but how can we bring the joy back into Christmas, or Easter, or whatever the campaign.”
Cressida sees this manifesting in the Tesco Christmas ad this year, In a way, everyone in the UK is Tesco’s grumpy teenager, burdened with worries and reluctant to celebrate. “People are going on that journey to find the joy,” she said. “It is a bit silly and a bit self knowing – it knows that it's an advert – but it’s quite good fun.” Her agency has been working with another UK supermarket, Co-op, who hasn’t gone for a big ad this festive season but has put out messaging around community spirit. The brand is raising money for causes up and down the UK, asking for donations to its Local Community Fund that it will match. “Enabling people to have that joy of giving back,” as she put it.
The panel noted some of the trends that retailers have reflected in their Christmas campaigns this year, such as how Christmas is different for everyone – nobody has the same traditions and that diversity of celebration is welcome. Jamie noted System1’s scoring of people’s sentiment about advertising, which showed that the average approval of ads at this time of year is significantly higher than the rest of the year's average. Essentially, people in the UK like advertising more when the Christmas ads are out. And retailers are key to that. “We can probably thank one brand for that – John Lewis,” he said. Before the John Lewis Christmas ad changed the format, this season was often defined by little more than ‘shop window’-style ads. “Christmas has become a time when the general public are less disinterested in advertising. And I think as an industry it’s made us better.”
Jamie, who works on the Kevin the Carrot campaigns for ALDI, revealed that the original campaign introducing us to the anthropomorphic carrot was in fact a pretty obvious ‘shop window’ style spot. It was a story about Kevin simply walking past and over various products from the supermarket’s Christmas food range. But there was enough emotional storytelling, entertainment and “Christmassy-ness” in it that eight years on, Kevin is still gracing our screens.
Working with brands like Tesco, Bonita has focused on one aspect of retail brands that is often perceived as a category challenge – the breadth of their customer base. “A lot of people think you have to either be mass, or you have to really go in with really personal, relevant messaging. And I don't. I think you can do a combination of both,” she said. She thinks the supermarket’s Christmas ad does that in that it tells an emotional story that most people can relate to. On the other hand, Tesco has worked with specific communities and audiences to find ways to connect authentically with them – for example with Muslims around its Ramadan advertising. “We're not ashamed to say that we might not necessarily have all of the people in house to be able to deliver the most perfect campaign based on those lived experiences. So we pull from our cultural consultants and work with them on content partnerships. Ultimately, it's delivering the best and the most authentic campaigns from our clients.”
Kit spoke in admiration of Tesco’s ‘Food Love Stories’ campaign as “a really nice example of the individual story resonating with the masses because we're all humans. We connect with that person that's there, even though they may not look anything like us.” There are a range of ways to appeal to a broad audience,” she added. “Representation is clearly absolutely vital and always needs to be considered, but people don’t have to literally see themselves in an ad to feel seen. They could see someone totally different to them; they could see a flamingo [like in the Very Christmas ad], etc., as long as it’s based on real audience insight and telling the story well.”
Rounding off the conversation, it was clear that retail advertisers are setting the bar right now and the panel finished with lessons that all marketers can learn from them.
Cressida championed the “broad appeal and populism” that these brands do so well. Jamie spoke about how retail brands so often “know who they are,” and know their audience. Bonita highlighted the power of “centring the product at the heart of the creative and telling a really amazing story around that. I think that's something that retailers do really, really well.” Kit concluded the session by applauding the seasonality and rhythm that retailers need to get right. “Humans crave ritual,” she reminded us. And retail advertising often taps into those rituals, which they have an authentic role in. “Retailers are about selling products and there’s no shame in that,” she said, “but great retailers understand the role those products play more broadly.”
