About 38,000 people live in the city of Wigan in the UK. Claire Hannah is a radio journalist there. Last year, she tweeted that she was disappointed her local Tesco didn’t have the festive green hat that hundreds of other Tesco stores get to wear for Christmas.
Wieden + Kennedy London seized on the opportunity to make Tesco show it cares. It called in the team behind the London 2012 ceremony, who put together a light show in front of Tesco Wigan with almost one million LED lights covering a screen 78 metres long and 7.2 metres high. Claire Hannah was given the honour of starting up the light show that was watched by 800 local residents.
And, of course, the event (that won tens of thousands of free media words throughout the world) was turned into Tesco’s 60 second Christmas ad, set to a brass band cover of Irene Cara’s What A Feeling and showing families decorating their homes ahead of a light show finale.
Tesco’s chief customer officer Jill Easterbrook commented, “Christmas is a wonderfully special time of year and we want to help customers in whatever way we can. Claire’s experience is just one example of how we’re doing every little thing we can to help make Christmas in fun and helpful ways.”
Ray Shaughnessy, creative director at Wieden + Kennedy London, added, “This year’s campaign is an important step change for Tesco in that they are doing all sorts of unexpected things to help people have a brilliant Christmas.
“It won’t just be about them making sure you get the best turkey on the table, it will be about making sure that people feel Christmassy too. Getting the team behind the London 2012 Olympic light show to light up Wigan is a great example of this.”
Creating good feelings about the brand is important for Tesco right now. It has had an annus horribilis, with a 92% fall in first-half profits and deteriorating sales, being placed under criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) following its discovery of a £263 million hole in profit expectations, triggered by a probe by accountants, Deloitte, and law firm, Freshfields, who found that the supermarket had been overstating its earnings for years.
