John Lewis have launched their latest Christmas advert, and are clearly hoping to repeat the success of previous years – but how do they do it? What is it that makes their Christmas marketing campaign so memorable and what can the rest of us learn from it?
To really stand out from the crowd in today’s fiercely competitive markets, businesses have to do much more than trot out their latest deals. Modern consumers need more to make them sit up and take notice; the John Lewis Christmas adverts completely bypass their products, services, and their latest deals and go straight for the audience’s heart-strings.
The biggest difference between the John Lewis campaign and traditional advertising strategies is that their story-telling technique actually involves no direct selling. It simply aims to create a memorable association in the audience’s minds between their brand and all things heart-warming. Their choice of storylines is carefully chosen to tie in with what consumers are thinking about in the run up to Christmas: loved-ones, family, togetherness, hope, and happy-endings.
There are some simple things to think about to bring this kind of modern thinking into your own marketing:
- Focus on being memorable (for the right reasons!) rather than just promoting your products and services
- Think about your potential customers and what they are interested in on a personal level (John Lewis’ target audience are homeowners, so they go for messages of family, togetherness, and love)
- If it’s a seasonal campaign, consider what the season represents to people and tie in with this
Remember that memorable marketing isn’t just for the big boys – Holler Marketing can help you create or adapt marketing campaigns to strike a chord with your target audience, so you too can stand out from the crowd www.yorkshiremedia.co.uk.