John Lewis Advertising On Demand
John Lewis Advertising On Demand
John Lewis Advertising On Demand
Andrew Darby
Source: WARC Media Awards, Silver, Effective Use of Partnerships and
Sponsorships, 2018
Downloaded from WARC
John Lewis, the retailer, partnered with broadcaster Sky to make its Christmas ad available on-demand
in the UK.
By creating emotionally engaging Christmas ads year after year John Lewis had built interest and
anticipation for its ad launch, and wanted to use this more effectively.
It partnered with pay-TV company Sky to become the first on-demand advertiser on Sky, featuring
the John Lewis 'Buster the Boxer' ad on the Sky EPG.
This, alongside the brand's integrated Christmas campaign, helped John Lewis achieve its best-
ever Christmas, with £165m extra sales.
Campaign details
Brand: John Lewis
Brand owner: John Lewis
Lead agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD, adam&eveDDB
Country: United Kingdom
Industries: Department stores
Media channels: Social media, Television - direct response, Video on demand
Budget: 5 - 10 million
Executive summary
John Lewis, the department store, launched its 'Buster the Boxer' Christmas ad in 2016 to create an emotional
connection with the British public and drive retail sales over the gifting period, using our highly anticipated and
emotionally engaging TV ad.
To launch our emotional AV content with scale and impact, we partnered with Sky to create a completely new
'on-demand' advertising platform.
On the morning of 10th November, we launched the advert online and on Sky EPG. The reaction was
astonishing, surpassing all expectations to create the biggest social launch day in John Lewis' history.
Within 50 minutes of launch, #bustertheboxer was trending #1 globally on Twitter – we even stole the limelight
from Trump's election, trending higher than #TrumpProtest, just one day after the election. The film became the
number-one trending YouTube video, the number-one trending content on Facebook and created our first ever
'Moment' on Twitter.
The 2016 campaign drove our best Christmas ever, generating £165m worth of extra sales and £51m of extra
profit, producing an ROI of 11:1, which was 9.3% higher than any previous Christmas campaign.
John Lewis advertising is recognised as signalling the start of Christmas in the UK. It is synonymous with
Christmas and is hotly anticipated. In 2016, it would also have to be the source of much needed light-hearted
relief from the world's news.
The John Lewis Christmas ad is our version of the Superbowl, and every year it's expected to make national
news and capture consumers' attention.
This cultural moment creates a unique environment, one where the lines between what is advertising and
entertainment start to blur. Against the backdrop of ad blocking, Christmas is the time of year where people
actively seek advertising, comment on it, share it and get involved. The level of social views has increased each
year (2013: 4m views, 2014: 6m views, 2015: 7.8m views).
Christmas starts early and is increasingly competitive
Christmas also starts earlier, with most advertisers launching between 4th and 17th November.
For many retailers Christmas has become a time of high spend. In the past 12 months, there's been a 20%
growth in media investment at a time when John Lewis' budgets are under increasing strain. Our overall share of
voice in the market is only 4%.
A new approach
Data from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter revealed that, over the last three years, the life span of the John
Lewis creative was getting shorter and shorter. 29% of views were in the first 24 hours. In total, 72% of total
views were consumed within the first seven days of the campaign launch.
We noted two key elements – firstly, that our first-view spike is ever increasing; every year, more people are
'leaning in' to find our ad and view it. And secondly, the first view becomes the most important in our whole
campaign – people want to see the ad, and they want to see it immediately.
Communications objectives
Christmas matters a lot to John Lewis. The Christmas period accounts for around 20% of annual sales and 40%
of profits, so success is vital for generating business growth. In recent years, the pressure on John Lewis' profit
has been acute, due to a decline in growth for high-street retailers.
UK retail is also fiercely competitive, and never more so than at Christmas. British retailers spend around £180m
a year on Christmas advertising. Against this backdrop, John Lewis set the objective to generate profit by
increasing sales during the Christmas period.
The key to strong sales at Christmas is store footfall, driven largely by gift shoppers. Therefore, the marketing
objective was to increase propensity to shop at John Lewis for Christmas gifts.
The likelihood of visiting John Lewis is partly a matter of salience. In the lead-up to Christmas, John Lewis must
spring to mind first. It's also a matter of emotional connection – John Lewis needs to feel 'special', a 'destination'
shop that people want to visit.
Yet the impact of the John Lewis Christmas campaign reaches far beyond short-term sales. This is the most
high-profile marketing campaign in the UK, at the most important time of the year. Each new John Lewis
Christmas campaign is anticipated, scrutinised, and talked about. Failing to move the nation would have a
significant commercial, social and cultural impact on the John Lewis brand. Every year, the challenge is to raise
the bar, and make each campaign more famous than the last.
Stakes firmly raised, we set the following communications objectives: increase brand salience and deepen
emotional connections, by creating Britain's most watched and loved Christmas advertising.
We knew that the main TV screen was still the ideal environment to build the greatest emotional connection for
the brand and thus we aimed to take maximum advantage of the opportunity the main screen affords.
Question: "In which, if any, of the following places are you most likely to find advertising that makes you feel
emotional?" (Source: TV/Ad nation, 2016 Ipsos Connect/Thinkbox, adults 15+)
Our quest to bring freshness to the John Lewis Christmas campaign for 2016 couldn't be led by shouting louder
in the hectic Christmas trading window, but more by understanding how consumers are viewing their most loved
content.
Firstly, it's clear that the emergent trend in quality TV programme consumption is moving to an on-demand model
as more people want to watch more of their favourites at a time that suits them. This trend shows no sign of
abating.
In two years, Ofcom recorded a 9% point increase in on-demand TV viewing, and an 8% point drop in live TV
reach – a sizeable shift and important context for us when considering the first view and the amount of time
available to us to make our maximum impact.
On deeper analysis, it's clear that genre is an important consideration in what people tend to watch on demand
and with the John Lewis Christmas ad we were confident that it is a storytelling moment, more similar to those
genres which people actively seek out to consume.
What genres do people time-shift in TV recorder homes? (Source: BARB, Jan-Dec 2016)
Overall, we took inspiration from TV VOD consumption, where the vast majority of recorded viewing takes place
within seven days and with box set downloads where an amazing 11% of viewers watch an entire box set within
a remarkable two days.
People playback promptly: 68% within two days (Source: BARB, 2016)
The box-set binge was facilitated by viewing technologies, specifically on-demand services that had given
viewers the opportunity for sequential and planned re-watching. On-demand viewing encourages binge
watching, immediate gratification and pulls consumers into the content rather than pushing it out.
We wanted to push this thinking out to the John Lewis advertising model, ensuring the John Lewis ad became
the most sought after, 'binge-worthy' piece of entertainment. Shifting our model from being a beautiful piece of
Christmas content pushed out in an ad break, to a must-see release that people pull towards themselves.
Just like any must-see piece of entertainment, we created the first-ever 'on-demand' launch where people could
devour and savour our content whenever and wherever they wanted, as many times as they wanted and across
any device.
This was a massive departure from previous planning, where we pushed the content out through smart seeding,
a perfect launch and pulsing activity based on the optimum TVR levels and 1+ cover. However, this time, we
crafted our idea around consumers pulling content towards them whenever they wished.
Phase 1: The binge view – owning a perfectly-synced moment across all devices where our audience
could consume our content across any device.
Phase 2: Catch up – opportunities to binge on additional, behind-the-scenes content, wherever and
however often they wish.
We partnered with the most knowledgeable and forward-thinking expert in entertainment – Sky. With a
catalogue of over 100 movies on demand and 360 box sets, we knew we were in good company. The
broadcaster innovates tirelessly to deliver a superior viewing experience for its customers and is known for
going above and beyond to secure the most premium and up-to-date content from across the globe.
The audience fit between the John Lewis consumer and the Sky On Demand viewer couldn't be more aligned:
35% of John Lewis shoppers have a Sky subscription, and they are 18% more likely than the British average to
use Sky's on-demand services (source: TGI Q1 2017).
Secondly, Sky has the greatest penetration of commercial VOD services (as measured by Ofcom).
Reach of selected VOD services over the past 12 months (Source: Kantar Media – TGI)
This innovative use of the on-demand entertainment platform meant that, just like with your favourite box set,
you could view the ad as well as immerse yourself in more content whenever it suited you, as many times as you
wanted, across any device. The John Lewis ad took pride of place on the EPG next to must-see entertainment
and dominated all Christmas advertising and entertainment in the most innovative way.
We opened our campaign up to 12 million households on demand, whenever they wished to see it, in the
comfort of their own home or via Sky Go.
We created the first-ever time-synced launch where at 8am the EPG tile and related content went live, alongside
social, across both Sky+ and Sky Q set top boxes, as well as Sky Go, meaning those with access could also
view our content alongside those viewing on other AV channels such as Facebook and YouTube, instead of
hours later as we had seen in previous years.
For four days, beginning from the launch on 10th November, viewers accessing the homepage were met with an
image of the John Lewis Christmas ad in the most prominent, hero section of the 'Top Picks' programming
gallery – a space usually reserved for the day's priority editorial programming chosen from across all channels
available on Sky, including partner channels and terrestrial.
This was the first time an advertiser had been positioned within this space, which is accessed several times a
day by Sky households. The level of excitement generated by the ad's launch in previous years validated it
having pride of place alongside hit shows such as Westworld on Sky Atlantic and the biggest and best movies
available on the Sky platform.
This ran on the homepage of the Sky EPG across launch weekend, meaning that no matter the competition
launch date, we would, within 12 million Sky households, hijack that moment with our continued placement.
The campaign fundamentally challenged the way any brand has launched a TV advertising campaign before in
the UK. This was not an evolution of another idea, or an execution that had been built based on a creative-first
lens, but a media solution based on a simple, viewer insight to deliver the most effective, innovative launch
platform in John Lewis' history.
Following the initial four-day homepage placement, the content remained available to search and view within the
Sky UX system until 26th December. From Dec 1st, the John Lewis content was also made available within the
Sky Christmas-themed tile across Sky+, Sky Q and Sky Go. All of these were media firsts within the UK.
Further support came with additional innovations across the Sky portfolio.
To ensure that we didn't just rely solely on organic engagement, we implemented a host of innovations to further
strengthen the campaign and deliver a richer all-round experience for viewers. This was delivered in the form of:
In total, the four days of launch (linear roadblock + Go and VOD) saw just over 5m ad views.
Partnership success
This partnership delivered the biggest single-day download record in Sky's history (even bigger than any of their
own TV shows).
With this being a true media first, we had absolutely no benchmark for how this would perform. Not only did it
resonate on the platform, but users embraced and welcomed the placement with nearly 900k downloads in the
first weekend alone.
Headlines:
2016 vs. 2017 'making of' video views ('Man on the Moon' day-one views: 1,540, 'Buster the Boxer' day-one
views: 356,415)
Social success
The innovative TV approach also contributed to the social success, delivering a 679% increase YOY within
Facebook on day one, driven by organic views, smashing the 5% YOY industry growth of Facebook video.
Organic views more than ever dominated the way users discovered our John Lewis Christmas campaign.
The organic reach of the ad was huge, with 79% of views driven by sharing. This potentially influenced the paid
social TVC as users had been served the ad already, driving the CPV up and VTR down on average.
On launch day, the ad became the #1 trending video, quicker than 2015 and any other Christmas ad this
year
#1 most-viewed Christmas ad worldwide on YouTube
The ad was trending #1 in the UK in 14 minutes and globally within an hour
#Buster was trending above #Christmas
Business success
Since 2007, John Lewis has used econometrics to measure the factors that influence sales. As the econometric
simulation below shows, 'Buster the Boxer' advertising was the main driver of sales growth, accounting for more
the two thirds of the store's growth, increasing sales by £139m YOY.
Lessons learned
All in all, it was a total vindication of our decision to evolve. Our bold new approach to using TV was an
unqualified success, helping John Lewis have yet another fantastic Christmas. In addition to this, we identified
three key lessons for marketers:
1. Scale matters
Creativity increases efficiency, but effectiveness is also a numbers game. This campaign succeeded by
combined great creative with massive exposure.
Client's view
"Every year we try to evolve and innovate in our approach to our Christmas launch. The work with Sky Media for
'Buster the Boxer' was another fantastic example of this and the results were exceptional."
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