John Lewis festive social strategy ‘most effective’
John Lewis has hailed its “omni-channel” strategy for record sales, a credit that comes as its social media strategy is named “most effective” by study that audited retailers’ festive activity.
The department store reported its best ever weekly performance in the week to 8 December, with sales reaching £142m, up 15 per cent compared with the same week last year. It also posted record online sales 46 per cent ahead of the previous year.
Barry Matheson, director of retail services at John Lewis, says the “cracking” performance is a result of more click and collect sales, in-store theatre and “outstanding” service and product availability.
The social media research, carried out by Goviral, found that the department store’s online video content, which included its snowman TV ad, was more effective at driving online engagement than rivals.
Topshop, which launched its first festive video campaign this year, an online ad spot starring Kate Bosworth, took the second spot.
Waitrose, which took a deliberately “unglamorous” approach to its festive TV ads, achieved the highest score of all the supermarkets.
Goviral measured volume, subscribers, total views and engagement with content uploaded to youTube and Facebook in the past month. It then analysed quality, purpose, innovation and audience relevance to calculate a social video equity score.
Govirals top10 retailers in branded content:
1. John Lewis
2. Topshop
3. M&S
4. Debenhams
5. Boots
6. Waitrose
7. Sainsbury’s
8. Morrisons
9. Tesco
10. Asda
