Sainsbury’s has kicked off the countdown to Christmas with its highly anticipated Christmas advert airing for the first time today. Set in a Sainsbury’s store as customers are busy shopping for their big day essentials, a curious girl steps up to the in-store Tannoy to ask the all-important question: ‘Hey Sainsbury’s, what does Santa eat for his Christmas dinner?
Despite initial gasps across the store and from the Big Fella himself, her question sparks a flurry of responses from Sainsbury’s colleagues while they’re working in stores and delivering shopping to customers’ doors, with each of them offering their suggestions of festive dishes, showstoppers and treats. As the colleagues share their recommendation, items magically appear, deliciously plated on Santa’s Christmas dinner table.
To learn more, we spoke to the team at New Commercial Arts who put it all together.
What was the brief?
It was a uniquely dual brief as it had the seasonal imperative to drive sales across the crucial Christmas trading period, but also to launch the new Sainsbury’s brand platform, Good Food For All Of Us.
How did the initial pitch/brainstorming phase go?
The Christmas campaign came straight out of the pitch process for an overall new direction for the brand.
This makes it different to almost every other Christmas campaign where the Christmas creative is a stand-alone comms campaign that is separate to the retailers ongoing work. This is firmly “in-campaign”, albeit as the first work to appear, the rest of the campaign will reveal itself from early 2024.
What was the process behind ideating the concept?
As it was part of the overall pitch, the process was fairly intense. But fun. It’s a bracing challenge to try and crack a new direction for such a public and populist brand when it’s clear the first expression of that work will be around Christmas. Like any pitch process, there were lots of ideas initially and then they were whittled down as we tested them against the multiple use cases across any trading year.
What was the production process like?
For such a high stakes job the production process felt very measured, thorough and calm. The nature of the creative concept required a production company and Director who could work across a number of challenges……. working with real colleague casting, alongside celebs, making luxurious Christmas food look delicious and making the whole thing feel warm, fun and winning. We also needed a lot of involvement and support from the client and their broader organisation.
We were very aware Christmas is a crucial trading period for the client and that this would be the first “outing” for new work from a new agency. Also the nature of the production entailed bringing together several key ingredients into a relatively tight timelength (60 seconds versus competitors longer copy)…… customers, suppliers, colleagues, a working store, Santa and his arctic hideout and then a whole lot of delicious special Christmas food.
What was the biggest challenge during production? How did you overcome it?
The central challenge was producing a coherent campaign when we were moving between very varied environments at speed. We were shooting a lot at night, on some of the hottest days of the year, across locations including stores, homes, Christmas tree farms, real farms, market gardens and Santa’s food table.
The outcome we wanted was something that felt warm and inviting but also fast and fun and festive….. an antidote to sprawling Christmas emotional epics.
What is one funny or notable thing that happened during production?
Rick Astley was a total trooper on the shoot. Shooting around midnight in the Sydenham store he kept spirits up by giving the guy stacking the shelves in his scene shoulder massages and popping round the store to say “Hi” to various colleagues doing re-stocking and making up deliveries in the middle of the night.
What’s the main message of this project and why does it matter?
The main objective of the campaign is to land the new brand platform ‘Good food for all of us’. Good food is always tasty, always good quality and always well sourced.
Good food means different things on different occasions, sometimes it’s healthy, sometimes it’s a treat – but it should always be accessible to all.
How long did it take from inception to delivery?
This is a tricky one as you could say from the start of the pitch process! But the idea first came about around March time and it went live in November.
What do you hope it achieves for the brand?
That is sets the direction for Sainsbury’s going forward, a warmer, more accessible brand that’s also great value.
Credit list for the work?
Credits (Agency and third party)
Founder, CCO: Ian Heartfield
Founder, CEO: James Murphy
Founder, CSO: David Golding
Art Director: Alicia Job
Copywriter: Jess Pacey
Artistic Director: Nici Hofer
Creative Director: Dan Bailey
Creative Director: Brad Woolf
Managing Director: Hannah White
Managing Partner: Louise Bodily
Business Director: James Wilkinson
Account Director: Patrick Dedman
Senior Account Manager: Abigail Johal
Account Manager: Jeff Baker
Strategy Partner: Matt Walters
Strategist: Helen Weavers
Director of Production: Matt Craigie Atherton
Deputy Head of Production: Georgia Dickinson
Production Lead: Cara Swindell
Project Director: Gareth Robertson
Design & Artwork: King Henry Studios
Head of Design: Danny Tomkins
Designer: Jasmin Price
Artworker: Lol Keen
Retouching: King Henry Soho
Retoucher: Mark Henry
Motion Graphics: Mat Wardle
King Henry Producer: Cam Henry
Production Company: Pulse Films
Director: Freddie Waters
Producer: David French
DoP: BENJAMIN KRAČUN / Matt Fox
Editing Company: Assembly Rooms
Editor: Eve Ashwell / Ed Copper
Post-Production: ETC
Post Producer: Alasdair Patrick
Grade: Luke Morrison
3D Supervisor: Matteo La Motta
2D Supervisor: Iain Murray
Music Supervisor: Manderley
Music Production: Library track/ Cavendish Music
Music Composer: Fonteyn, Sam
Audio post production: Wave Sound Studios
Sound designers: Ben Gulvin / Harry Butcher
Photographer: Colin Campbell
Photographer’s Agent: Gill Turner
