You’ve got to love Aldi.
All the big Christmas advertising players have spent all year getting into position, crafting the ‘perfect message’, spending blockbuster budgets on production and buying up media like its going out of fashion.
Only to get beaten.
By Aldi!
This is another lesson on how having all the resources does not guarantee the best results. Sure, Aldi are also big spenders, but it’s all relative and shows that by really understanding your customers and tailoring your approach to the things that they actually value, you can win the day.
Marketing Week reports that Aldi tops the retailers in a study by Waggener Edstrom (WE) assessing the social media impact of each retailer’s Christmas marketing over the last four weeks. For the Christmas index, WE has not just scored the TV ad and how it’s been perceived by UK audiences but also how the retailers are maintaining and sustaining their respective campaigns in the build up to 25 December. It achieved this by tracking dialogue from when the ads first went out and then all subsequent engagements across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs, forums and news sites.
In particular, WE praised Aldi for its TV spoof of John Lewis’s ‘Man on the Moon’ advert, which compares two telescopes, one John Lewis and one Aldi and includes Jean the infamous star of Aldi’s previous ads along with the hashtag #aldifavouritethings.
By gently poking fun at the John Lewis ad, Aldi reinforces its challenger credentials and its brand positioning as a retailer that is based on bringing really great deals to its customers. It’s a brilliant example of agile marketing immediately making bigger campaigns look a little self indulgent and irrelevant.
It just goes to show that relevant and engaging creative positioning can win out in the face of bigger competitors. You just need to be super creative, true to your brand and relevant to your customers. No biggie. Give us a shout if you need some help!