How marketing teams can use Affogata and the story of the John Lewis Christmas ad

Marketing teams look for customer feedback in their analysis of digital marketing campaigns, social media sentiments, and overall brand awareness, to name a few. As the festive season nears, here is the story of one famous marketing campaign and how Affogata would measure and analyze it.

In Great Britain, the John Lewis department stores have operated since 1864, with their most famous branch located in London's Oxford street. The John Lewis & partners, as it is now called, sells household and fancy/high-end goods. In 2007, the chain launched a Christmas television ad, airing in early November, and this marketing campaign became an annual tradition. The ad is now considered the unofficial start to the countdown towards Christmas in the UK and is known to gain heavy exposure on social media.

The John Lewis Christmas television ad history shows that the ads usually rely on emotional content, use a cover of a famous song and end up with a festive and heart-warming message. The cover versions also enter the singles chart and twice have reached number one: "The power of love" by Gabriel Aplin served as the 2012 ad and ended with the "Give a little more love this Christmas" message. The following year it was "Somewhere only we know" by Lily Allen which reached the top, ending with "Give someone a Christmas they'll never forget." Even Sir Elton John joined in and starred in the John Lewis 2018 Christmas ad, covering his own famous "your song". The ad ended with "Some gifts are more than just a gift." This year saw the release of "Together in electric dreams" by Lola Young, a 1984 cover, and the ad ended with "For a Christmas as magical as your first".

The John Lewis ads combine the brand's holiday message with a call for shoppers to visit its stores. The campaign has been so successful that it led to some fierce competition by rival chains such as Sainsbury's, Boots, and Marx & Spencer. Huge amounts of money are invested in the song selection and recordings, production of the ad itself, and the spending on media. Such an investment calls for lots of research and planning while also taking into account the public reactions to previous years' campaigns.

And this is where Affogata can step in. The AI platform, with its multi-analysis features, can supply the comprehensive customer feedback story to John Lewis' marketing team, or to any other marketing team for that matter. Among other things, The platform can:

- Analyze customer discussions about previous ads and measure what consumers have to say on this year's campaign. Such feedback collection and analysis can tell accurately how consumers compare recent campaigns to new ones.

- Measure other department stores' marketing campaigns and compare them to the John Lewis one. This gives the company some perspective on how it rates versus its competitors.

- Explain what were the popular topics in the conversations about the ad and what criticism, if any, customers had about any of its features. This can reassure the marketing team if they aimed right or if they need to pay more attention to what customers are actually interested in and better react to what is important to them.

- Finally, Affogata can sum up the brand sentiment around this crucial selling time period, let the chain see what impact its festive ad had this time around and how it contributed to the overall score.

Marketing teams work hard to promote their brands while spending large amounts of money on them. Brand and marketing teams may have a hard time measuring brand awareness campaigns and showing how they contribute to direct revenues. Brand campaigns effectiveness is also considered more long-term, which complicates matters even more as many companies are usually more concerned about their short-term income.

An Affogata analysis can help address those issues. It pinpoints the highs and lows of brand campaigns and serves valuable lessons on the current marketing situation as well as offers thoughts for next year's efforts.