Do-it-yourself @Christmas

The two major home improvement (DIY) retailers have positioned themselves to get a slice of the festive spending.  B&Q launched their Christmas advertisement on 7 November, and Homebase followed on 19 November.

B&Q's movie seems there to show that the firm not only sells trees, lights and decorations, but a range of toys also.  The ad itself is pretty unremarkable: what is more interesting is their campaign to get digital engagement via something called The Big Switch On.  The company is encouraging customers to decorate their trees and to film the moment when the lights are lit.

These bits of film are then uploaded to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, using the hashtag #ChrismasUnleashed.  B&Q have a long running campaign using the term unleashed.
B&Q then add the location of these uploads to a UK map.  This mirrors the Waitrose campaign to get customers singing; in both cases the companies promise that the best results will appear in later TV advertising.



At the time of writing (25 November) this imaginative idea hasn't exactly gone viral.  The map shows a few dots around London and one in the Bournemouth area.  But it is early days and the plan seems to be to make December 6 be the big switch on day.  B&Q's 46,000 Twitter followers seem muted.  In fact the #ChrismasUnleashed hashtag seems to be being used by other retailers and as a generic term by the Twitterati.  Both here and on Facebook (B&Q has over 125,000 likes) the moderators are dilligently promoting the Big Switch On: however, on Facebook at least these posts are often being hijacked by disgruntled customers complaining about poor service or faulty products.  The Christmas TV ad has to date performed miserably on YouTube with just 12,000 viewings.

Homebase launched their TV ad less than a week ago (19 November) but are already showing viewing figures ten times those recorded by their competitor.  Homebase have created their own cute canine character, Homebase Harriet, with a dedicated social media presence on Twitter. In doing this they are following John Lewis's lead creating a virtual identity for Monty the Penguin.  Harriet has her own TV commercial which has gained an impressive 140,000 viewings in less than a week. To date Harriet has failed to get anything like the social media traction shown by Monty, with just 71 followers to Monty's 33,000.



In summary, two similar brands, both promising to transform fairly mundane TV advertising campaigns with promising sounding social media strategies.