Very Dream of a Pink Christmas

There’s never a shortage of reindeers and robins in Christmas advertising, but you’d have to look long and hard before you found a festive flamingo. At least until Very.co.uk’s newest ad, in which three dazzlingly pink birds – their names are Kerry, Terry and Cherry – bring sparkles and joy to a town of grey pigeons with their Christmas deliveries.

As an online retailer without the high street footprint of the main Christmas competitors, Very have always had to punch above their weight at Christmas time. They’ve done so by smart use of their main distinctive asset – the colour pink. (A challenger brand that loves hot pink? Very, we can relate.)

In Christmasses past their ads generally revolved around pink boxes, a reference to the boxes they deliver things in. The boxes were a strong, recognisable distinctive asset but sometimes tricky to build a story around – a box can’t actually do very much.

So Very and creative agency The Gate have developed this trio of flamingos – all the pink you could desire but a bit more active story potential. This first animated outing is a delightful piece of festive fantasy, with the three flamingos’ gifts turning the whole grey town pink. The characters are charming and there’s clearly a lot of space to develop them in future (and because flamingos aren’t traditionally Christmassy, they’ll be welcome visitors all year round if that’s what Very wants to do).

The only question is – how effective are they? The trio of birds are a really strong performer with the general public, landing a 4.8-Star score, just short of the maximum 5-Stars. We also tested the ad with a custom sample looking only at people open to buying on credit – with this subset (who reflect Very’s target audience) the ad breaks through the 5-Star barrier and ends up more than a full star higher at 5.7-Stars)

Just as encouraging for Very and the campaign, both the short-term Spike rating and Brand Fluency scores are Exceptional. Often the biggest risk with introducing new distinctive assets in an ad is that the branding is weak as people don’t recognise the new characters. This isn’t a problem for Very. They have introduced their flamingos in a well branded ad which is dynamic and recognisable enough to create a big short-term response boost as well as drive longer term growth. Kerry, Terry and Cherry are a hot pink hit.