Wallace and Gromit have helped country casuals chain Joules take on the retail giants this Christmas.
The Leicestershire clothes company’s festive ad has been rated as one of the most effective in a crowded market – 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’ emotional response and brand recognition.
The big budget John Lewis/Waitrose ‘Excitable Edgar’ ad came out on top while Amazon’s all-singing ‘Everybody Needs Somebody’ spot was second.
The Joules ad was third, while ET and Elliot’s 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: “Five years ago it was just John Lewis out there, now everyone is asking who will put out the best Christmas advert.
Most Read
“We’ve used the ad on social media and it’s gone bonkers. We’ve put Wallace and Gromit in a particular Christmas sweater that has just gone mad – you can buy the same Christmas sweater for the dog, and we’ve got families now sending in pictures of them all wearing it.
“We chose Aardman because it’s 30 years of Wallace and Gromit and 30 years of Joules.
“When they said how much it was going to cost I did gulp, but we’ve had great value for money.
“It was a lot to commission this and we are a big business but we haven’t 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.
“You need to continue being innovative and actually spend more, don’t spend less, especially if you have got the right product and the right audience.”
The Christmas advert also fits in with Joules’ 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.
Don’t miss
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 – supplying other outlets – was down almost 4 per cent year-on-year.
International revenues are now worth around 17 per cent of total sales.