Woolworths celebrates Christmas with a street party in new campaign via M&C Saatchi, Sydney
Woolworths has debuted its latest campaign via M&C Saatchi Sydney, delving into Australia’s Christmas street party culture.
Drawing upon Australians’ love of Christmas, the 30-second ‘Street Party’ TVC hero’s five year old Holly’s sheer delight in having her street gather for a day of feasting before huddling together for the highly anticipated switching on of the Christmas lights.
Accompanied by the tagline, ‘That’s why I pick Woolies for Christmas’, the campaign explores the important role fresh food and community gatherings have for Woolworths customers over the Christmas season.
Says Tom McFarlane, creative partner, M&C Saatchi: “The power of a genuine brand platform is that you can stretch it. We didn’t need to start again for the festive season. Instead we built on our positioning line, ‘That’s why I pick Woolies’, by simply adding two words – ‘That’s why I pick Woolies for Christmas’. And little Holly is the perfect character to remind us of the magic Christmas brings.”
Says Andrew Hicks, director of marketing, Woolworths: “Australians love Christmas and ‘Street Party’ celebrates the joy and fun of the season, and the rituals our customers take part in. This is a time of year when we celebrate together and we hope the campaign will provide further inspiration for Aussies to create delicious festive dishes that play an integral part in bringing families together.”
The Woolworths Christmas campaign will be supported through the line with 2 x 30″ and 8 x 15″ TVCs, radio, digital, OOH media (static and digital), press, magazine, full catalogue takeover, in-store POS, truck decals, digital discovery and social.
Woolworths:
Andrew Hicks, Director of Marketing Supermarkets
Nick Chapman, General Manager, Marketing Communication & Brand
Elizabeth McCall, Marketing Communications Manager
M&C Saatchi:
Tom McFarlane, Creative Partner
Michael Andrews, Executive Creative Director
Phil Leece, Creative Group Head
Sophie Ayles, Group Planning Director
Hayley Larkman, Group Head
Bettina Stephenson, Senior Account Director
Loren August, Executive Producer
Vanessa Istomin, Senior Art Buyer
Mitch McCausland, Digital Producer
Production Company: Playbig Film
Rey Carlson, Director
Craig Sloane, Executive Producer
Photographer: Louis & Co
Jamie MacFadyen
Media Agency: Carat Australia
Barbara Messitt, Group Business Director
Jade Flay, Planning Director
Post Production: Alt
Music: SongZu
Public Relations: One Green Bean
35 Comments
When you look at some of the current crop of Xmas ads for big retail brands, especially out of the UK, this falls well short of the mark. It’s bland at best and is instantly forgettable.
what a sad xmas woolies is having.
M&C are supposed to be the best that Australia has to offer, this doesn’t even rank on a local scale let alone global.
We all know Woolies are an awful client, but this lacks craft.
Apart from the Aldi effort, which grates very quickly, Christmas in Oz for advertising is a bit of a washout.
what a sad xmas woolies is having.
Yep
Total utter bollocks. Can’t we do any better???? Did the agency really look at this script and say “Bang! There it is! Nailed it. Everyone’s going to love this and remember it for a long time”? Jesus fucking Christ. We HAVE to do better Australia. God I’m bored of how shit our advertising is here. Time for the Woolies creatives to retire.
A brutal simplicity of failure.
I’m sorry….what??
When you think of the genesis of M&C as the breakaway from the principled and creatively driven Saatchi & Saatchi, this latest exercise in mediocrity is just inexcusable. And the attempt at PR spin by Tom McFarlane just compounds it. Lazy, undifferentiated and utterly middle-of-the-road advertising. Just add ‘at Christmas’ to the line, job done, off to lunch! How does this dreck even get past the first internal review?
That is truly shithouse. Such an opportunity lost.
Jaimes should be concerned – NRMA, Woolies, Optus all doing forgettable retail work. What happened? Reminds me of the dark days at Droga5.
Finally, Christmas has meaning again. Now I can go and celebrate with my compadres from the school of ridiculously over the top performances on a street so multicultural it makes downtown New York feel whiter than Nazi Germany.
And thanks for delivering such a complete and utterly convincing reason to pick Woolies. Cause that’s why I pick Woolies. Pick it in the eyes with an ice pick.
Sorry M&C but the spot light is on you.
You invested heavily in bolstering the creative department by hiring a massive creative leader and many other big name creatives. It’s been a while now so where is the work?
All has been below par apart from maybe the Audi heartbeat thing (that did nothing for car sales and nothing at award shows) and the funny chicken drumstick donation thing.
Get together. I’m rooting for you.
It’s about 30 seconds too long.
they’ve put more love into this one, actually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maH1ELpwSHU
Golf clap ^ One comment.
Only Woolies could drag M&C down this low. If M&C care about their reputation and their staff they would fire them before they destroy the agency.
https://media.giphy.com/media/l41lFSzc9uzAxJyLK/giphy.gif
Playing it safe is the most risky way to try and rebuild a fallen brand.M&C has the creative firepower to do it, maybe the client is just scared.
Sorry, but how’s this work any better than previous years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1MXKsT-fFM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H4aaOvSmQ
Woolies burn out agencies, throw them under the bus and then get the new ones to do the same old stuff but cheaper. Sounds like a political nightmare. They have no Australian values and should stop pretending with fake cheesy ads. No one is buying it.
Here’s an idea – Spend your x’mas marketing budget on the farmers you screw over.
The bigger the names and egos – the worse the work.
Aaaaaand…. the same old bitter cynics anonymously blasting away. So dull. The smart money says Tom knows what he’s doing better than anyone else and the client no doubt loves it. Oh yeah and the 99.8% of the population NOT in the ad industry are fine with it too.
Hypocrisy, thy name is ‘Another day…’ for slamming ‘the same old bitter cynics anonymously blasting away’ …anonymously.
The 99.8% of the population NOT in the ad industry are on auto-pilot and will not even notice this wallpaper. Woolies will merely continue to have a corporate presence, but no more than that.
Perhaps that’s all they really want.
Silly us for aspiring to something better on their behalf.
Mediocre, just how the client likes it.
It’s a rehashed steggles ad from the same agency
Look on the bright side. After making this ad, at least the creatives, suits, planners and clients know they’ve left the world a slightly more retarded place.
I think this is actually pretty charming. The kind of thing you see when you’re a kid to get you excited for chrissy. Speaks to a (however manufactured and misjudged) child’s sense of the world and how they view the adult world. It’s not spot-on or perfect, but still charming.
It’s actually not that bad as you haters make it out to be. The little girl is a real charmer. I do agree it’s not as polished as some of the other Xmas ads out there but that’s what I love about it. Keep it simple I say. And bring back that little girl. She’s a star.
A masterpiece campaign.
The young girl in the dress, early on in the advert, with the older lady resembling an Italian grandmother, appears in apparently a communion dress.
This will appeal to Catholic and other Christian consumers, loyal to support Woolies, one in three Australians.
A masterpiece, masterful campaign.
Christmas can be materialistic at times but is essentially a time of spiritual celebration and reinforcing community.
Congratulations to all at Woolworths and the advertising team.
David Melbourne
Is the dog in the background an English cocker spaniel?
The little girl in these ads has a distinct laxative effect on me
As the my name suggests. FML is a fool re its comment on the little girl.
^^^ What a bunch of humbugs😆 lol
This advert really grinds me. There is nothing that makes me think of picking Woolworths for Christmas as it is soooo flakey out nice. Depressing when you know your Christmas will be nothing like they perceive it to be. That’s why I don’t pick Woolworths.
gdgay