As Christmas ad season is in full swing, I speak to the planning and strategy team from McCann Manchester, the agency that created Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot.

What we cover in this episode:

Why Darren and Jamie bring a life size Kevin’s to meetings
The benefit of doing strategy as a pair
Convincing a sceptical customer to shop at Aldi for Christmas
Taking inspiration from John Lewis the reigning king of Christmas
How the humble carrot being the big idea
Selling the idea into Aldi
Why they didn’t want to recreate a brand new campaign every year
The challenge to beat Kevin every year
Inspiration from light entertainment and why’s its harder than it looks
Sticking to what works whilst always finding ways to keep it fresh
How to balance Christmas, a cost-of-living crisis & Christmas
The importance of entertainment even in tough times
Jamie & Darren rate this years crop of Christmas ads
Beating the benchmark Coke Truck Index
How Kevin successfully leverages the Long and Short of it
Using System1 testing to screen for early stage ideas
Why the simplicity of the System1 metrics are so important
The case for testing a 4 min long animatic
How media is like renting a stage upon which to put on a show
The astonishing business results delivered by the Kevin campaign
Proving that being cheaper doesn’t mean you can’t be better
The power of combining fame and consistency
Wear in vs wear out on the System1 Test Your Ad database
Why we are over familiar with our own work vs the audience
How little attention advertising actually gets
The power of jokes you know the punchline to
Being lovably pirates rather than the navy
The powerful purpose being Aldi’s mission to make good food affordable

Kristian Thees

The AI-powered Podcast Player