Supermarket chain scores big with banned holiday ad

12/5/2018
Talk about a holiday ad with impact.

British supermarket chain Iceland was put on the map when its holiday anime commercial against palm oil was deemed “too political” for TV broadcast. The retailer had announced earlier this year it would be the first supermarket to ban products containing palm oil. It teamed up with Greenpeace to produce a tear-jerking advertisement that went on to score over 5.5 million views on Iceland’s YouTube channel, over 162,000 online mentions and mass mobilization against palm oil all over the United Kingdom. A single tweet that said the ad had been censored had more than 1 million interactions, according to social media analytics firm Talkwalker. And after pleas from celebrities urging people to watch the advertisement, the ad is now on track to become the most popular ever by the end of Christmas, The Daily Mail reported.

Here are a couple of other brands that Talkwalker cited as having broken through the clutter with quirky ads/promotions and scored big on social media:

• The influencer prank with Payless
The value footwear retailer staged the opening of a new luxury shoe store in Los Angeles, and invited renowned influencers to its inauguration. The victims of the prank ended up spending over $600 on a pair of $20 dollar shoes, and published several videos raving about the products before the ploy was revealed. Payless reimbursed the influencers, but took away several headlines and online mentions (over 80,000 brand mentions over the last week, Talkwalker reported, which is +2,700% more mentions compared to the previous period).

• Can you feel it with Amazon?
The year 2018 has seen Amazon investing more than $35 million on TV advertising (up 290% compared to the previous year) and replacing its traditional men choir ad with a revamp of the Jackson’s Five hit song “Can you feel it?” “sung by shipping boxes all over the world (more than 300,000 views on the official YouTube video).

• Between holiday songs remix and snipes at the competition with Microsoft
Microsoft’s new take on the traditional “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” takes a clear shot at Apple through the voice of a little girl who has “bigger dreams” that can only come true on a Microsoft Surface (62,000 views on the product’s YouTube channel).
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