This month Sainsbury’s achieved the highest uplift in Ad Awareness of any brand in the UK with a +16.6 rise
Sainsbury’s festive marketing campaign was on the end of racist abuse following the launch of its first ad this year. The ad, which followed a black family celebrating the festive season over a number of years, combined lo-fi footage and a nostalgic voiceover.
But if Gravy Song’s detractors hoped to have damaged the campaign, data from YouGov BrandIndex suggests the backlash may have had the opposite effect. With an uplift in Ad Awareness scores (which measure whether a consumer has seen an advertisement for a brand in the past two weeks) of +16.7 points, Sainsbury’s claims the UK’s Ad of the Month for November 2020.
The supermarket started the month with a score of 21.5 (Nov 1), but this rose to 38.2 by November 30. Over this period, Value scores – which measure whether a brand represents good value for money – also went from 11.6 to 13.5 (+1.9).
Consideration (which measures whether a customer would buy from a brand the next time they are in the market) saw a slight increase from 39.6 to 41.1 (+1.5), while Current Customer scores, a measure of whether a customer has bought something from a brand in the past 30 days, rose from 33.6 to 36.4 (+2.8).
Following the initial backlash, many of the UK’s major supermarkets (ASDA, Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Waitrose, Iceland and Marks & Spencer) joined Sainsbury’s to run a series of adverts in back-to-back primetime slots on November 30, each featuring the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism.
An uncommon gesture – given that competitive retailers usually avoid airing Christmas adverts close together – for a Christmas ad that received a decidedly uncommon response.
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