M&S unveils two Christmas campaigns with TikTok and QR code firsts

M&S’s Food and Clothing & Home Christmas campaigns will appear across multiple platforms from today with its first TikTok takeover and use of custom QR codes from Flowcode.

The ad space for Food and Clothing & Home was purchased separately by WPP agency Mindshare but both campaigns are launching at the same time for “maximum impact”, the retailer said.

Both ad series will also be served across social feeds and several TV ad breaks like Good Morning Britain, This Morning and Emmerdale.

Food

M&S will target family-aged consumers with a 60-second TV spot featuring Percy Pig, the sweets brand mascot, who explores Stratford Foodhall. The ad will run across linear and VOD slots until Christmas.

Seven further ads showing Percy Pig exploring different food products have also been created to run until the New Year.

There will be a “pre-campaign” on social with the hashtag #WhoisPercyPig to tease consumers which M&S says will be seen by 9 million people across the UK.

Additionally, the Food campaign will feature “bespoke content” across other social channels and M&S’s first TikTok takeover.

The campaign plans to use in-store channels as well including Percy Pig-branded carrier bags.

Actor Tom Holland, who stars in the Spider-Man movies, voices Percy Pig and comedian Dawn French voices the Christmas Fairy.

Clothing & Home

M&S will continue its Anything but Ordinary campaign this Christmas across a range of channels from print cover wraps in Metro that also “nods to the Food campaign”, an activation at Waterloo station and three large scale sites with hand-painted murals.

Video-on-demand will be “key” and M&S will be the first UK retailer to use Flowcode to embed custom QR codes “seamlessly” into these ads. Flowcode is a QR code creation service that has a  specialist platform for TV and connected TV.

Both campaigns plan to tap into recent M&S research showing that 39% of families in the UK plan to do more to mark Christmas than they did before the Covid-19 pandemic, while 68% of people plan on getting together for a big family Christmas this year.

Creative for both campaigns was from Grey London. With this partnership, M&S wants to continue to “hero the trust quality value” of its own-brand products while “changing perceptions” about value and style ahead of the brand’s 30th birthday next year.