Entertainment > Branded Content & Visual Storytelling

MOG'S CALAMITY

AMVBBDO, London / SAINSBURY'S / 2016

Awards:

Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Film
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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

CampaignDescription

Our ambition was to create a piece of entertainment the whole family would enjoy; that would get the whole nation talking, laughing and – most importantly – sharing. To achieve this we needed to tell a story that people would love, and that had multi-generational appeal. So we revived one of Britain’s best-loved children’s storybook characters, Mog the cat.

The idea tempted 92-year-old Judith Kerr out of retirement and we worked together to ensure that our new story - ‘Mog’s Christmas Calamity’ - was a genuine addition to the Mog canon. We turned reading Mog’s Christmas Calamity into a currency that would help in two ways: giving families something to share during Christmas and using sales of the book and toy to raise money for Save the Children.

Ultimately, this resulted in a new book, a new film created by the makers of ‘Paddington’ and a cause for the nation to share.

Execution

The film launched on 12th November across 83 TV channels and online simultaneously, the first time ever a campaign had launched with such scale in the UK.

Mog involved store colleagues more than any of our previous Christmas campaigns, with colleagues reading in local schools, and Mog inspired teachers and educators to create resources to help children read.

Outcome

We built awareness, earned huge social media engagement, created the most watched UK Christmas ad on YouTube ever, and a book that shot to the top of the bestseller list in both the children’s and adult charts - the first time a children’s picture book had ever taken the top spot.

We raised over £1.6M for Save the Children and helped Sainsbury’s to be the only Big 4 grocer to grow in the run up to Christmas 2015, with more customers served in store than ever before.

Relevancy

In 2015, we saw an opportunity to evolve Sainsbury’s (now well-established) ‘Christmas is for sharing’ platform through creating deeper customer participation by giving families something to share over the festive period. To achieve this, we enlisted the help of world famous children’s author Judith Kerr and revived her creation Mog – Britain’s most loved cat. The result? We won the hearts and minds of the nation. Not only was the film viewed over 30 million times on YouTube (making it the most viewed UK Christmas TV ad ever), we also raised funds for children’s’ literacy in partnership with Save the Children.

Strategy

We sought a new way of evolving our strategic platform, ‘Christmas is for sharing’, in 2015. We already knew Christmas is about sharing things you love with people you love, but then we found something we did not know - that parents spend just 34 minutes a day with their children.

We set ourselves a challenge: how could we leverage our annual Sainsbury’s Christmas campaign to make a difference to family time together? For this, Sainsbury’s would have to give British families something very special to share at Christmas.

This had to be more than a piece of advertising. We needed a timeless story, with wide appeal – a piece of entertainment the whole family would enjoy and share. Finally, we needed a story that would spread the good beyond the book and movie, enabling customers to engage on a deeper level with the campaign and contribute to a bigger cause.

Synopsis

In 2014, we produced our most successful advertising campaign of all time, raising money for a great cause, galvanizing our colleagues, generating a handsome ROI and standing toe to toe with the world’s most celebrated advertising. So in 2015 we had a challenge to take this even further.

And we had to do it against our toughest ever market conditions. Increasing competition from the big discounters Aldi and Lidl coupled with decreasing spend at the tills in the lead up to December meant the success of our Christmas campaign was more important than ever before. This was our most critical sales period.

We needed to change the game and create deeper customer participation – finding a way to bring to life our brand point of view that ‘Christmas is for sharing.’

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