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