Christmas in a Day: The trailers had racked up over 1 million views on Sainsbury’s YouTube channel by the time I was fortunate enough to attend the premiere at beautiful BAFTA House alongside the film’s director and the many stars of the 47 minute feature made up entirely of user-generated content.
A true roller coaster of emotions, I found myself happily giggling away one moment and simply dissolving into tears the next. A genuinely heartfelt, charming and entirely authentic look at Christmas in the UK.
Why this shepherd loves Twitter: A marvellous essay by @HerdyShepherd1 about why he loves Twitter. A self-confessed luddite and shepherd in the Lake District, Herdy admits that he never would have thought he’d take to Twitter. It was only after he upgraded to a smartphone with Twitter installed that he succumbed to the little blue bird’s charms.
“I suddenly had a camera and Twitter app in my pocket whilst I worked. And though it took me a while to realize it, I had the tools to connect to thousands of people around the world. I could now defend the old in my own quirky and probably misguided way.”
How to do a Twitter Q&A: Econsultancy looked at seven recent Twitter Q&As by brands that proved to be useful in one way or another. They key points they seem to make about what a brand should consider before agreeing to a Twitter Q&A:
Get your other Twitter accounts and platforms to promote the Q&A hashtag
Stick to your hashtag – it makes it easier to track questions and also potential reach
Don’t invite people to ask you question when you’re having a bad news day
Collect questions in advance of the Q&A via the hashtag, Facebook and email
Use a service like Storify to curate the Q&A so that you have a record of it for later
Transparent customer service via Twitter: @KLM now provides a live update on how long they expect it’ll be before they respond to queries. You’ll see this information when you make your way to KLM’s customer service centre and also directly on their Twitter profile. Really impressive stuff from a company that’s alwayspushing the boundaries on social and digital media.
Pay with a selfie: Last week I shared with you my thoughts on the word selfie making it into the dictionary. The South African retailer Urban Hilton Weiner went a step further to celebrate the new official word and launched a one-day campaign encouraging customers to share a selfie of themselves wearing some of the brand’s clothing in order to in order to contribute to their payment.
The hashtag #UrbanSelfie quickly saw a number of in store customers tweeting, Facebooking and Instagraming their outfits from inside the store’s changing rooms for a chance to win some money.
Clever URL shenanigans: I don’t understand a great deal about Eggball other than there’s some sort of World Cup going on, England lost (as usual?) and the All Blacks are both terrifying with their pre-game Haka and also nigh on invincible.
Christmas in a Day: I grew up with Christmas in the tropics, a plastic tree, a Nativity that we assembled every year. On Christmas Eve it’s always mum’s super-special, home-made salmon pate and deviled eggs and other tasty cold cuts before we all rip into our presents (yes, in Germany it’s the Christkind that brings the presents, and as with many things in Germany, the Christkind is efficient and delivers things a day before Santa gets around to homes in the UK).
Decorating the Christmas tree
I’ve had the pleasure of celebrating Christmas with @tomparker81 and his wonderful family – who introduced me to the wonders of a cheeky Baileys (or three) before Christmas lunch. Then there’s my lovely future in-laws who – year after year – look to get the biggest Christmas tree available. Last year, my brother came over to London from Berlin and we celebrated Christmas by watching some festive footie and heading off to the pub for a Christmas lunch.
The point I’m trying to make is that every family has their own tradition and way of celebrating Christmas and that is exactly what Sainsbury’s have highlighted in their stunning new TV campaign for the festive season, the film Christmas in a Day.
From the fantastic kid, to the radiator keys, to Twitter’s new favourite, Spreadsheet Man – these 3:30 minutes are full of laughs, giggles and right at the very end, it takes such an emotional turn that I still well up.
The full length film airs on 29 November on YouTube and who knows, it might become a Christmas tradition in some households across the country. If you can’t wait until then, there are some more trailers on Sainsbury’s Christmas hub and there’s a great blog post by @MarkJGiven on the story behind the campaign and how it came about.
Right, right, right… what about the reaction then?
Monumental would be one way to describe it. I was lucky enough to be invited to AMV’s offices for a little launch party for the trailer’s first airing on ITV – taking up the entire ad break on Coronation Street.
It was brilliant to have a room full of chatty, happily knackered advertising, comms and marketing people from AMV, PHD, Blue Rubicon and Saino’s go quiet when the ad started – only then to hear them gasp, woop and cheer at the immediate and massive reaction to the trailer on Twitter.
A quick look at the Buzzgraph for mentions of “Sainsbury’s Christmas ad” shows that words such as “emotional”, “amazing”, “tears”, “crying”, “lovely” and “cute” are being used in combination with the clip.
The Co-op were very happy to have spotted some of their Christmas puds in the Spreadsheet Man bit – leading them to tweet our ad to over 30k of their followers.
“In the manipulative world of modern television – where content is so often subject to the brand police and the political spin doctors – it’s nice to know that the “real life” footage used in Sainsbury’s Christmas in a Daycommercial is just that.”
Proud to be a part of it
Some of the most powerful responses though have come from our own colleagues. Not only is their reaction overwhelmingly positive, but colleagues from around the country are saying how proud they are to be a part of Sainsbury’s. I think it’s a testament to Sainsbury’s Internal Comms team and to all those lucky few who were able to go along to Sainsbury’s annual colleague conference two months ago to be among the first in the company to see the footage and NOT SAY A WORD about it and that the story didn’t leak.
Bloggers – full disclosure: Last week, I wrote about why we work with bloggers at Sainsbury’s. Interesting then to see a post on the ASA’s website reminding bloggers of the advertising guidelines that “any blogger who is paid to write positive reviews or comments about a product or service that they must be up-front with their followers by making clear that it’s advertising.” Turns out the ASA has been receiving feedback from bloggers that some social media and PR companies are “apparently offered them money to advertise on their behalf while encouraging them not to declare that they’re doing so.”
Who’s in trouble when this happens?
“Under the Advertising Code, although the blogger would be named as part of any ASA investigation into misleading advertising, ultimately the buck would stop with the advertiser. If a paid for entry on a blog wasn’t disclosed we would investigate the advertiser and hold them accountable.”
So, be good and encourage the bloggers you work with to clearly note what kind of incentive they received from you.
Custom Timelines: Storify took a deep breath this week when Twitter announced a new feature that allows you to build a Twitter feed by picking certain Tweets. The interface is still very clunky and basic functions like sorting these so called custom timelines chronologically doesn’t yet work (or at least I couldn’t figure out how to do it) and it seems to only work via Tweetdeck – but, it’s a move in the right direction and one that I think will worry Storify (aka the social curator’s tool of choice).
How much does Twitter owe you? Time built a wee calculator that analyses your Twitter handle and determines how much Twitter owes you after their IPO (if you lived in imaginary fairyland then you might have a case – sadly, this is just a silly tool). Apparently I’m owed a meagre $134.
Twitter is a weird and wonderful place: Sometimes, the stars align and people come together and create something wonderful. Even if it was started by @TescoMobile, this is up there with best Twitter thread of the year (and yes, you need to open this link in your browser to appreciate why this is every social media manager’s dream).
Tumbling Tesco: Continuing on with the Tesco theme, this week sees two brilliant Tumblrs about Tesco. First there’s ‘Worst Place on Earth‘, a masterpiece of Comic Sans and ALL CAPS outrage at the horror that is the Tesco Express in Haggerston and then we have the direct opposite, a love letter to the St. Tropez of Tesco Express in North Poole.
New technology: A marvellous list by XKCD of simple answers to questions about how the next big technological development will impact our lives.
Source: XKCD
Video of the week: Jean Claude van Damme helps Volvo demonstrate the precision steering capabilities on their lorries by pulling off this epic split. And yes, it’s all real.
Bits and Bytes 