Food retailers have recruited an army of celebrities with internet clout for their festive advertising campaigns as they battle for digital influence this Christmas and try to tap into a burgeoning market for partying at home.
Marks & Spencer has signed up Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, the US actors whose purchase of Wrexham AFC and accompanying Disney+ documentary have increased their fame in the UK, for its food Christmas ad.
On top of that, the retailer has also recruited Peter Crouch, the former England footballer who features in two of the UK’s top 10 podcasts, to make a quirky clip for social media based on his “puddings is massive” catchphrase.
Reynolds, who has 50 million followers on Instagram alone, and McElhenney, who has 2 million fans on that site, voice a pair of mittens in M&S’s animated ad, which continues its festive series fronted by Dawn French as a Christmas fairy.
The retailer is also going to be sponsoring Wrexham AFC as part of the tie-up – with talks on about potentially providing food at the ground. M&S is opening a store in the Welsh city on 1 December.
Waitrose has also freshened up its look, under its new advertising tie-up with Saatchi & Saatchi, with an ad based around a stylised slick party, featuring a cameo by the chatshow host Graham Norton, whose accounts sharing clips from his TV talkshow have millions of followers on Youtube and Instagram.
Last year, Waitrose opted for a more worthy image with farmers highlighting the care that went into making its food.
Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, has shoehorned the star of one of the internet’s most popular memes, 1980s pop star Rick Astley, into its ad – browsing in the cheese aisle.
Astley is enjoying a renaissance after two crowd-pleasing performances at Glastonbury festival this summer. His star was reborn thanks to “Rickrolling”, which involves tricking web users into following a link to a music video for his 1987 hit song Never Gonna Give You Up.
He posted a Sainsbury’s ad teaser to his 1 million or so followers on Facebook and more than 400,000 on Instagram on Thursday.
Sainsbury’s, working with newly hired agency New Commercial Arts, casts Astley alongside real members of its staff who answer a child’s question on what Santa would like for Christmas lunch.
The promo, which launches the supermarket’s new slogan Good Food for All of Us, is the basis for a campaign of call and response style ads featuring Sainsbury’s staff and suppliers answering customer queries.
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Sharry Cramond, M&S’s head of food marketing, said digital was an important part of the group’s marketing plans. She said the Crouch clip, filmed in a store and based on a young footballer getting his dream of eating a pudding at Christmas, a time when he would often have to swerve sweet food because of a match on Boxing Day, is expected to be shared widely on social media.
However, the perils of engaging with social media were highlighted in reaction to an Instagram post of an outtake from the filming of M&S’s clothing and homewares ad, which featured Christmas hats thrown in a fire.
M&S took down the post after it attracted criticism because the traditional Christmassy red and green colours of the hats resembled the Palestinian flag. The advert was filmed in August, before the current conflict began.
Nathan Ansell, customer director at Waitrose, said the supermarket had “put a lot of effort into the digital channel this year”, including a CGI “moment” on TikTok featuring mince pies bursting out of a store, augmented reality activity on Meta and a quiz on Pinterest.
Its TV ad is intended to “push against the norms of Christmas advertising”, with no moment featuring a family around a table – and no children in the ad at all.
Its theme reflects an expected shift towards entertaining at home this festive season as households attempt to save money amid hefty inflation on essentials, including energy bills and groceries.
However, others have steered clear of the trend, with Morrisons opting for a more traditional ad featuring singing oven gloves serenading a family cooking and then sitting down to a Christmas meal.
