The Winner

Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s is pulling out all of the stops this year. It has teamed up with Oscar-winning director Kevin McDonald to create a 50-minute feature film that aims to turn how Britain spends Christmas day using home videos sent in by customers.

The campaign is a part of a much wider trend for brands to take advantage of content to create buzz and interest on social media. Nevertheless, the supermarket has taken a risk here by moving faraway from the standard ads bonanza and focusing its Christmas attention on a movie.

This isn’t the primary time the supermarket has gone with an engagement-led business plan. It sponsored the Paralympics last year and launched a campaign over the summer geared toward helping stressed parents over the varsity holidays.

This approach, at the side of its “Live well for less” strapline is obviously resonating with consumers. The emblem is riding high and sales and market share are at the up. With its Christmas ad it also has a campaign so as to pull on the heartstrings and make people see the logo as a supermarket it really is all things to every person.

The Runners Up

John Lewis

The launch of the loo Lewis ad has become an event in its own right, rivalling Super Bowl ads in relation to expectation, hype and social buzz and chatter. This year it even managed to convince Simon Cowell to reschedule the X Factor to permit it to take over a complete ad break during programme and created a projection at the South Bank.

John Lewis is additionally succeeding in build up an industry round the ad, launching merchandise starting from bear and hare onesies to cuddly toys. The only by Lily Allen is riding high on iTunes.

Positioned around “thoughtful giving”, John Lewis has managed to convince the British population that spending money at the perfect gift is how to a successful Christmas. A marketing coup if ever there has been one.

Tesco

Like rival Sainsbury’s, Tesco is attempting to portray the truth of Christmas for families, in place of a “perfect airbrushed one”. It specializes in one family, using cinefilm and videocam footage to expose their experience of the festive season over the last 50 years.

The idea isn’t particularly new, however it is easily executed and manages to create an emotional reference to the viewer. The supermarket could be hoping the ad helps it continue its recent modest sales revival.

Waitrose

The Waitrose ad sticks out from the gang because it’s about “giving something back”, in place of buying gifts or products. Here is the second one year in a row it’s gone down this route and while it could were seen as a risk last year, an underlying sales rise of four.3 per cent last Christmas suggests it paid off.

It’s a remarkably understated ad that eschews glitz and glamour and makes a boy in a bobble hat the star of the show. It is usually in direct contrast to its rival inside the high-end grocery store, Marks & Spencer, which has gone all out on an opulent fairy tale-themed campaign.

The Losers

Marks & Spencer

M&S has spent millions creating an ad that appears expensive, feels luxurious and showcases its finest products across both its clothing and food divisions. It also has celebrity appeal, with Rosie Huntington-Whitely, David Gandy and Helene Bonham Carter taking starring roles.

However, it’s the celebrities which are the issue. No person really believes that models like Huntington-Whitely shops at or wears M&S clothes.

As with much of M&S’s marketing, its style over substance. The retailer must put cope with determining who its audience is and playing to them than looking to win people over with glitz and glamour.

Boots

The Boots ad is a pleasant idea. A hoodie-wearing lad sneaks out of home clearly on his approach to cause some trouble. What he’s actually doing is delivering gifts to those that have done something special for him.

The problem is the music the ad is determined to. Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy tells the tale of a tender boy from a small town forced to go away as a result of abuse because he’s homosexual.

That doesn’t really tie in with the broader message of the Boots ad. Marketing Week has received complaints that its use within the ad trivialises a massive track for the gay community.

The Bizarre

Morrisons

The neatest thing which might be said about Morrison’s campaign is that it’s an improvement on last year, when it was investigated by the ASA for sexism and cruelty to dogs. This year it has returned to form, featuring Ant & Dec and an all-singing all-dancing gingerbread man to wax lyrical about its food.

The problem is many of the food at the overladen table feels like its manufactured from wax – its weirdly glistening and unappealing. Plus on the end it seems that Dec is set to eat the gingerbread man. What the way to go.

DFS

Does Santa actually work for a settee retailer? DFS wants us to think so.

One of its Christmas ads show him working in a factory and delivering sofas for those that order in time for Christmas. Another shows him going right into a DFS store and noting down what’s available, before again becoming a delivery driver.

This feels like a disappointing method to end Santa’s previous career delivering gifts to kids. Has Christmas been cancelled?