Could Mog help make Sainsbury’s Christmas?
MOG the cat’s comeback in the Sainsbury’s Christmas ad has helped the supermarket claw ahead in the battle for customers’ hearts.
The cat with a taste for calamity was created by author Judith Kerr and starred in 16 children’s books between 1970 and 2002. Now she is back in computer-generated form in a heartwarming new campaign.
In the first 15 hours since the ad’s launch on Thursday night, it was shared more than 200,000 times online – more than the 174,717 times which John Lewis’s Age UK-sponsored ‘The Man on the Moon’ campaign managed in its first day, according to figures from technology firm Unruly.
In the ad, Mog inadvertently brings chaos to her owners the Thomas family’s house. Neighbours then rally round to bring them food and tidy up, reinforcing the advert’s ‘Christmas is for sharing’ theme.
Kerr, now 92, has a cameo in the short film, and has written a new Mog book to complement the campaign. Yesterday shoppers said the ad had been a trip down memory lane, with one tweeting: ‘The nostalgia of watching Sainsbury’s Christmas ad had my mum and I in tears! We used to read the Mog books endlessly when I was young!’
Last year, John Lewis’ Monty the Penguin ad was seen 24million times on YouTube, while Sainsbury’s First World War epic was viewed around 17million times.
But according to magazine Management Today, it is debatable whether ‘ingenious Christmas campaigns’ actually have anything to do with ‘festive sales boosts’ at Christmas.