Currys ‘upgrades’ Victorian Christmas with modern tech

Currys PC World wants to show the “transformative power” of technology in its 2018 Christmas campaign, which features Victorians using a selection of gizmos and gadgets to give their festive frolics a modern-day twist.

From carol singers using tablets in place of hymn books, to a woman using a voice assistant to play Christmas tunes to her house guest, various scenes of festive traditions have been created to show how technology can “upgrade” Christmas.

Created by creative agency AMV BBDO, the campaign also includes the wife of a Scrooge-like character sleeping peacefully (thanks to her noise-cancelling headphones) while he is kept awake by the noise from the pub below.

“We really tried to think about, ‘what’s our role to help our customers at Christmas?’ Our role is to help show them how amazing all this technology can be and how it can upgrade their Christmas experience,” Georgina Bramall, head of brand and advertising, tells Marketing Week.

“We took those traditional Victorian moments and then we thought about how we can apply that technology lens to really elevate that. If we were to look at those traditions but within a modern day scenario, how could technology transform those traditions?”

Whereas in previous years Currys has been more focused on a single product or service, this year it is trying to showcase the “totality of its offering”. Although only until 24 November, which is when the campaign will come to an end (the TV spot will run until 18 November and online ads until 24 November).

“We’ve got a range of different need states from different customers and a range of different technology solutions. So it’s more around recognising that everybody probably has an element of their Christmas traditions that can be upgraded by the tech we can bring to our customers,” Bramall says.

“It’s showing the benefit of the product as opposed to the product itself. And in showing that benefit, that’s how you get that more emotive connection.”

READ MORE: The Marketing Week Christmas blog 2018

The campaign rolls out across TV, video-on-demand and social media this evening (Thursday 1 November), kicking off with a 40-second TV spot during Emmerdale at 7pm.

There will also be two bespoke 10 second shorts that highlight specific ecommerce features. These include Currys’ price comparison functionality and the Point and Place app, which uses AR technology to show customers what a product will look like in their home.

Bramall says one of the key elements of the brief was to make sure the campaign could “transcend all the layers of comms”.

“We don’t just want a beautiful Christmas TV ad, we want the richness of that environment within our stores, we want our website to take on the connotations of exposing that technology,” Bramall adds.

“Obviously TV has an important role to play because of the very nature of how many people you can reach with the medium, but only as part of a broad mix of a totally integrated campaign.

“Equally as important to us is being able to speak to our customers as individuals so our CRM programme is incredibly important to us – it allows us to tailor what we talk about to our customers. Our social channels allow us to have a more personalised view on marketing as well.”