Marks & Spencer’s television ads starring Helena Bonham-Carter and Rosie Huntington-Whitley have generated quite a bit of interest and buzz. But the movie stars are in for a tough competition from a West Highland Terrier who was christened by over 130,000 members of Facebook and Twitter. M&S has taken its holiday campaign to social media this year. Its ‘Believe in Magic and Sparkle’ television ad was first revealed on YouTube and followed by Instagram and Twitter campaigns, before being aired on television.
Come Christmas, UK retailers feel the pressure to engage consumers in the most compelling way possible. At stake is a whopping £72.7 billion in retail sales estimated to flow in between mid-November and the end of December, according to the Centre of Retail Research. Content marketing and social conversations assume a lot of importance during this time, and M&S has placed its bet on Sparkle, which has payed off well for the brand. Its twitter competition inviting people to post festive pics of their pets attracted ten thousand from Twitterverse.
Marks & Spencer’s other social media contests are #AdventGuess and ‘Pass the Parcel’ on Facebook. The goal of the Twitter contest is to direct followers to the M&S site. The exciting contest invites followers to guess the right item on marksandspencer.com, from the clues tweeted by the brand. The item is the prize for the day. Pass the Parcel is exclusively for those who register their ‘likes’ for M&S. It has earned the retailer over 70,000 fans since its launch, and has been played by 350,000 people.
It’s not just Marks & Spencer that has social media engagement on its mind. John Lewis’ ‘The Bear and the Hare’ Christmas ad, which is the most talked about Christmas ad on social verse, notched up 10 million views by 6th December.
