Christmas TV advertising campaigns have little if any impact on where the vast majority of consumers do their shopping, according to a new poll.
A survey of 11,500 consumers by shopping comparison website MoneySavingExpert.com revealed that just 1% said the adverts had a “big impact” on where they did their Christmas shopping, while 2% said it had “an impact”. One in 10 said the ads had a “rare impact” on them and may have subtly influenced them once or twice, but 69% said they had no impact whatsoever.
Depressingly for the industry, 6% said they liked some of the adverts but could never remember who they were for, while 9% said they were “turned off” by the adverts and deliberately avoided the stores behind them.
Companies – led by the big-name retailers and supermarkets – will spend a record £5.6bn this year in a frenzied attempt to outdo each other, according to industry experts.
John Lewis says its Christmas ad campaigns over the past four years – which have included a snowman’s quest for a gift for his lover, a bear and a hare, Monty the penguin, an elderly man on the moon and this year’s Buster the boxer – have fuelled an average 16% lift in festive sales. The number of festive shoppers in John Lewis stores has climbed more than 50% from 926,000 to 1.4m between 2013 and 2015.
“It’s good to know that consumers are not falling for the marketing hype of Christmas adverts and are not changing their shopping habits just because they think a particular dog, robin or even carrot is cute” said MoneySavingExpert.com’s deals editor, Gary Caffell.
“People are clearly just seeing these multimillion-pound adverts as a bit of festive entertainment which is great, as retailers will do whatever they can to get consumers to spend their hard-earned cash.”
A flurry of campaigns with totally divergent strategies have already hit the screens, from Burberry’s mini-film featuring Sienna Miller and Domhnall Gleeson, and Harvey Nichols’ tongue-in-cheek “Britalia” campaign celebrating all things Italian, to fashion retailer H&M’s unusual offering directed by Wes Anderson.
