Features
Should Christmas be Australia’s Super Bowl moment?
For a festive Audio Campaign Review, 72&Sunny's Andy Flemming, CHEP Network's Katie Peacock, and Bear Meets Eagle on Fire's Toby Hussey join host, Calum Jaspan to chat about which Christmas spots hit the mark this year in what is the toughest brief out, and why brand codes should be thrown down the chimney for what could become Australia's 'Super Bowl moment'.
The question posed on this week’s Mumbrellacast Audio Campaign Review Christmas Special, asks the panellists how brands should be representing Australians in their festive campaigns? Or more specifically, what should a Christmas campaign look like?
“I think it’s been overcomplicated,” says 72&Sunny’s Andy Flemming. “I think you have to look at the UK and America and see how they handle events like Super Bowl and Christmas, and essentially what they do is they drop their brand guidelines and they do something wonderful because essentially it’s a magical time of the year and they don’t go ‘well we have to use this person, and we have to do that, it’s got to be green, and it has to be about this’.”
Flemming says Christmas ads have been over-complicated
“They just tell a really lovely, magical story that’s designed to make people feel great about the brand. They spend a bit of money and they do something a little bit magical, and if it’s got The Rock in it or something, then so much the better, and they have a laugh.”
Flemming says here in Australia we’ve forgotten this.
“We have spent so long trying to do the right thing that this dreaded word that I hear all the time from clients all over the country, which is humanity. It just gets filled with, you know, humans.”
“They don’t become great stories. They just become lots and lots of people sitting around a table with a big lump of pork being put down.”
Managing director at Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, Toby Hussey says he “couldn’t agree more” with Flemming.
The drive for humanity, he says, “ironically has the complete opposite effect”.
Bear’s Hussey: ‘The drive for humanity has the opposite effect’
“Our stories feel less and less human. We’re sort of holding barriers up to something rather than telling stories that are kind of insightful, interesting, compelling, engaging, and surprising. And like you said, Christmas is kind of just joyful. It’s supposed to be a moment.
“It’s interesting the context this year, I think it’s a particularly tough brief this year and I feel like there’s a lot of box-checking.”
“Christmas is the toughest brief for retailers,” says CHEP Network executive strategy director in Brisbane, Katie Peacock. “It’s the toughest brief of the year because it’s such an important retail moment for them.”
“But it’s so wrapped up in the emotion and the subjectivity of Christmas, and I think that we have to be really careful we don’t end up with this long checklist of what does the archetypal Christmas in Australia look like? That, I think is the antithesis of great creative.”
Peacock: Christmas is the toughest brief for retailers
“They spend so much time trying to talk to all people that they spend, that they don’t talk to anybody,’ Flemming adds. “And that’s the problem. It becomes a piece of generic Australian that that’s designed for everybody with a mouth basically.”
“If this was repositioned as our Super Bowl, and when you walk into that meeting with those Christmas scripts, everyone you are presenting to should be excited about how fun, different, exciting, and just plain fun the Christmas work should be.”
“But I get the sense that it’s the opposite of that, that it’s actually the safest part of the year.”
The episode discusses five of the biggest Christmas campaigns so far, including Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Australia Post, and Myer, as well as a discussion on why John Lewis continues to get things right in the UK during the festive season.
The panel also debates what the archetypal Christmas really is in Australia, and what role mangoes have to play in it. Peacock as the resident Australian on the panel says they are!
Listen to the full episode below.
Episode Breakdown
- Christmas Campaign Review (01:24)
- John Lewis setting the standard (57:08)
Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
Linkedin
topics
72&SunnyALDIAndy FlemmingAustralia PostBear Meets Eagle on FireCHEP NetworkColesKatie PeacockMumbrellacastMyerToby HusseyWoolworths
Have your say