Iceland's celebrity Christmas

Challenge

Iceland's budgets meant that simply repeating an admittedly successful strategy was not an option, given that it was trying to increase cut-through and share-of-voice during the critical 3-month Christmas period, when a third of their sales occur. At the same time, Iceland's investment in Christmas advertising was already high, taking 66% of its total annual media investment. Iceland had to achieve an increase of 6% like-for-like sales.

Insight

The Iceland shopper loved watching TV, and unsurprisingly given their demanding family lives, loved reading magazines and watching programmes about celebrity and escapism. 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' once again offered Iceland the perfect sponsorship opportunity. This was not just because of its 'fit' with the audience but also in its timing, being broadcast for 3 weeks in November right in the middle of the Christmas supermarket advertising bonanza - when share of voice was so important but so expensive and difficult to achieve by conventional advertising means.

The unique opportunity that the show offered was the chance to use the special link between Kerry Katona and the programme to go well beyond traditional TV sponsorship.

Solution

The key decision was to attribute the sponsorship not just to Iceland but to a category. Iceland Party Food was a critical part of Iceland's seasonal offering and therefore became the focus of the creative work. It was a short step from Party Food to the line 'Party like a Celeb'. Rather than have a 'one-size-fits-all' sponsorship credit, more than 40 idents, featuring 19 Party Food products, were produced.

The yellow button interactive area offered the opportunity to engage viewers. Kerry was featured within the Interactive service inviting viewers to press yellow to 'party like a celeb' and once in the service there was an opportunity to learn about Iceland's party food. Finally, Kerry's unique view of the show was added in the form of a blog which was updated daily.

Taking the association online, Iceland benefited from the timing of ITV's Broadband launch and the #I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here' site experienced fantastic levels of page visits with unique visitors up by over 28% and page impressions up 55% year on year.

Results

The 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here' series 7 started with a 9.2 million audience and 42% share against Iceland's core target shopper. Footfall in store and customer transactions increased markedly during the campaign (5%) whilst during, and immediately after the campaign sales of the 'Party Fayre' range grew by 17% year on year.