Tesco
Here’s the new Tesco Christmas ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_4AOpcBwZ4
When I watched it this morning I realised it had been on the previous evening but I’d only heard it. I was doing something on my laptop and all I could think was ‘what’s that incredibly long ad with Rod Stewart sounding like he’s squeezing one out?’ It didn’t interest me enough to make me look up, though.
So I had a look today and and, one small quibble aside (the piss poor ageing make up) I think they’ve done a good job.
The observation of the family moments at Christmas is pretty skilful, and Tesco is a big enough part of this country’s fabric to justify a ‘British Christmas=Tesco’ ad. Like John Lewis they set their bar quite high and it could all have gone horribly wrong, but in my opinion they’ve pulled it off.
So: closer to the JL end of the scale than M&S.
Hooray.
Can’t get into this myself.
An ad has to be more than just association, surely? I’m trying to understand what they are trying to achieve here – remind people that their favourite time of year is something they enjoy?
I dunno. Maybe I’m getting long in the tooth. But these ads seem high on strategy and craft, and low on what was traditionally called ‘creativity’, and as a result I find myself a bit bored.
Surely the challenge is not for the brand to peer through the window, but to be there in the room.
But what do any of them have to say?
John Lewis: we sell household crap you could use as gifts.
M&S: we sell shitty clothes and better-than-the-supermarkets food.
Tesco: we sell all that stuff you buy at Christmas.
Nothing much to boast about, so I think they’re just reminding us that they’re there and hoping we like them for it (or at least hate them less than Asda or Morrisons).
I think John Lewis enchants you with a (stolen) idea. And you feel some kind of reciprocal warmth for that.
M&S sells idiots a kind of glamorous Christmas that dumb middle class English people love to fall for. You know the sort, the kind of families that will have caviar for starters and think that calling Champagne ‘bubbles’ makes them one step removed from royalty. It’s glam by numbers.
I just think Tesco could have perhaps got in on the act more. Imposed themselves a bit more.
Game of opinions, of course. Game of opinions.
I think, I was a client, I’d be most confident about the M&S one.
It’s well made, but far too similar to the John Lewis ‘more than a woman’ ad.
It looks as though the message from focus groups for all three retailers is “What will really make us spend this Christmas is feeling bizarre, pointless and irrelevant, with a dollop of pretentious fairy tale thrown in.” Really? I thought that the worst recession in 80 years had bred a generation of shoppers who were smart, savvy, penny-pinching and above being patronized by a load of expensively produced twaddle. Apparently not.
This Tesco ad charting family life through the generations borrows so heavily from the John Lewis ad ‘Always a woman’ that I almost spat out my Waitrose tea.
I detest every last one of them equally for trying to make me feel feelings.
Not entirely sure that originality is the point of any of these. Which is an observation and not a criticism.
Do the Morrisons one! Do the Morrisons one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTLjulVbbE4
My fave bit is at 11 secs when Dec follows the Gingerbread Man with his eyes as he runs across the table. Imagine the shoot for that –
Director: Ok Dec, I’m gonna give you a count of 5, if you could just act like your eyes are following a dancing, singing Gingerbread Man across a shittily-decorated table, that’d be great.
Dec: (aside, to Ant) Is this a bit fucking rubbish?
Ant: (aside, to Dec) Who gives a fuck they’re paying us a million quid. Get it over and done with and we can double-team the make-up lady in our trailer again.
Dec: (aside, to Ant) Only if she’s wearing her ‘Ant’ mask.
Ant: (aside, breathily, as his finger playfully traces Dec’s thigh under the poorly Art Directed table) To be fair to the Morrisons lot, this Festive Chutney would make a lovely lube…
It’s all a bit Wonder Years, is it not?
you’re fucking kidding right, this tesco ad is shite of the top order, i can’t believe they’re running it, when the figures come out in new year W+K are for the chop and the account will move to TBWA, you heard it here first!
Oooooh… How exciting!
Real industry gossip right here on my ‘umble little blog.
i’m pretty sure they have accurate enough sales forecasts that they don’t have to wait for anything.
it’s not 1982.