Wallace and Gromit have helped country casuals chain Joules take on the retail giants this Christmas.
The Leicestershire clothes company鈥檚 festive ad has been rated as one of the most effective in a crowded market 鈥 despite only being promoted through social media.
The ad features the iconic characters, which were created by Bristol-based animation studio Aardman, getting ready for Christmas in typical eccentic-style, while sporting Joules woollies and knitwear, and with Joules products and branding liberally scattered around the scene.
The Drum marketing news website said it was one of the best Christmas ads this year, according to things such as viewers鈥 emotional response and brand recognition.
The big budget John Lewis/Waitrose 鈥楨xcitable Edgar鈥 ad came out on top while Amazon鈥檚 all-singing 鈥楨verybody Needs Somebody鈥 spot was second.
The Joules ad was third, while ET and Elliot鈥檚 return for Sky and the annual Christmas Coke ad were fourth and fifth.
Joules founder Tom Joule said the advert took about a fortnight to film, and they had decided to promote it on-line only because of the high cost of TV campaigns.
He said: 鈥淔ive years ago it was just John Lewis out there, now everyone is asking who will put out the best Christmas advert.
鈥淲e鈥檝e used the ad on social media and it鈥檚 gone bonkers. We鈥檝e put Wallace and Gromit in a particular Christmas sweater that has just gone mad 鈥 you can buy the same Christmas sweater for the dog, and we鈥檝e got families now sending in pictures of them all wearing it.
鈥淲e chose Aardman because it鈥檚 30 years of Wallace and Gromit and 30 years of Joules.
鈥淲hen they said how much it was going to cost I did gulp, but we鈥檝e had great value for money.
鈥淚t was a lot to commission this and we are a big business but we haven鈥檛 got millions that we can blow. For a lifestyle brand I think it was quite a big move to do it. At a difficult time in retail if you feel good about your brand you will keep throwing money at it.
鈥淵ou need to continue being innovative and actually spend more, don鈥檛 spend less, especially if you have got the right product and the right audience.鈥
The Christmas advert also fits in with Joules鈥 new range of dog products, aimed at the almost 80 per cent of customers on its database who have dogs.
That includes everything from dog beds to toys, collars and leads as well as matching coats for dogs, owners and their children.
Joules is currently building a new head office in its home town of Market Harborough and operates 124 stores in the 海角视频 and Ireland.
Latest figures for the brand showed revenues up 1.3 per cent in the six months to the end of November.
While online and in-store sales were up 3.1 per cent, the wholesale side of the business 鈥 supplying other outlets 鈥 was down almost 4 per cent year-on-year.
International revenues are now worth around 17 per cent of total sales.
