The Media Plan
Ever received a “pointless” Christmas present? Santa socks, LED reindeer ties?
Around one in five unwanted gifts — equivalent to £42m a year — ends up in a landfill each Christmas, resulting in “both unhappy gifters and recipients”, according to VCCP Media chief strategy officer Will Parrish.
In 2023, the agency worked with men’s skincare brand Bulldog to campaign against buying “pointless gifts” and instead encourage shoppers to buy their loved ones Bulldog products they would actually use.
For 2024, VCCP was tasked with expanding Bulldog’s holiday campaign, opting to address the “driving cause” of why consumers get pointless gifts: panic buying.
A large sub-section of Brits (44% in 2022, according to YouGov) do their Christmas shopping late, opting to finish their efforts after 19 December.
“Half the country is in a blind panic with less than a week away until Christmas,” said Parrish. “We decided to shine a spotlight on this reality and turn it into a talking point — at the same time positioning Bulldog as the solution, giving our audience a gift they actually want.”
Three-phase plan
Parrish outlined three “strategic phases” to the media plan: pre-empting Christmas shopping panic, curating conversations and redirecting panic towards Bulldog. Given the Christmas period is a “heavily cluttered” time to market a skincare brand, “Bulldog needed to bark louder to stand out from the noise”.
He explained: “We used search data to pinpoint when panic buying begins and planned to get ahead of this — confidently setting out the problem (and solution) at the beginning of the gifting season.”
The first phase centred around a London radio campaign, with spots across Global’s Heart and Bauer Media’s Magic and Greatest Hits (London) stations. In addition, VCCP invested in large-format OOH roadside and transport the capital.
The second phase was dedicated to starting conversations, such as through sponsoring a competition on Global’s Capital Breakfast and host ad read slots on the popular Shagged. Married. Annoyed podcast hosted by Rosie and Chris Ramsey.
As the “final Christmas countdown” approached in the week of 19 December, the third phase of the campaign was executed, with tactical prompts seeking to “intercept moments of high panic with reassuring messages from Bulldog”, said Parrish.
OOH inventory was further leveraged at this stage by using postcode data of core Bulldog retailers such as Boots and Tesco, ensuring ad sites were in close proximity to relevant stores. In addition, dynamic creative via digital OOH was utilised to notify onlookers of specific retail locations nearby.
Outside London, paid social and digital display ads were also run to encourage online users to add Bulldog to last-minute gift lists.
Pairing the benefits of commercial radio and podcasting
Speaking to The Media Leader on the broader channel mix strategy, Parrish said it is “important that, although our media targeting prioritised gifters, it also had positive halos to our core Bulldog audience”.
He continued: “This meant we needed to have a mix of mass broadcast reach channels, such as outdoor and radio within London.”
Parrish added that he was most proud of aligning on-air promotion of Bulldog on Capital Breakfast and Shagged. Married. Annoyed.
“The FM station’s morning output now delivers more 16-24s than Radio 1 (Jordan North and Chris Stark’s previous home) and the campaign’s messaging is a perfect fit for listeners to engage with,” Parrish noted. “This is perfectly partnered by a podcast-hosting pairing of Rosie and Chris Ramsey, where we can afford a lengthier discussion of Bulldog’s benefits from a couple’s perspective.”
VCCP is currently measuring the success of the campaign through brand-tracking efforts this month, as well as by considering business outcomes such as sales during the Christmas period.
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