Spending it well (our brand idea) at Christmas is; about a spirit of goodwill. Our ambition was to be the home of Christmas and so we wanted to celebrate the goodwill that our products and brand creates.

We brought this to life through a well-known character, Paddington, who personified a generous spirit and our brand values.

Paddington and the Christmas Visitor’ was executed using the same quality production and craft as the actual Paddington film.

The campaign kicked off with a tease phase (4th Nov) with bespoke content running across social and digital. The full 90s epic film launched on the 7th November and ran until the 23rd December and was enjoyed across TV, VOD, social, digital, YouTube and mobile video formats as well as the ‘gold cinema spot’ before Paddington 2 cinema viewings.

The campaign was further activated instore with bespoke décor and windows in all UK and international M&S stores and 90+ exclusive merchandise products were created and sold to support. In addition, the film went live in over eight countries internationally.

An exclusive book of the story was created and raised £400k for NSPCC. Launched through celebrity readings in-store and on local radio stations

The campaign was overwhelmingly successful, driving fame for M&S with over 24m views on social, 39.4K comments, 200k+ shares and our sentiment was 97% positive. In addition it drove 118 pieces of PR coverage, with a reach of 66m.

Adwatch survey stated M&S as ‘the most likeable Christmas advert of 2017’ and Unruly and Thinkbox named the ad the ‘most effective Christmas campaign of 2017’.

The campaign landing page gained 51% more visits than last year and the Paddington product specific landing page drove 485,485 visits.

In regards to product, £5.6 million worth of Paddington product was sold, with 50,000 Paddington plush toys selling out within 2 weeks and an additional 10,000 sold out online within hours.

The book raised over £400k for the NSPCC and was entirely self-funding. As a result, over the 12 days of Christmas, ChildLine were able to give 8,362 counselling sessions.