2013 winner: John Lewis, Long Term Marketing - case study

This paper tells the story of how John Lewis went from a trusted retailer to one of Britain’s most loved, talked about and visited brands, in just a few years.

Since 2009 the overriding marketing objective has been to deepen the emotional connection with customers in order to build frequency of visiting John Lewis. This objective has lived through all communications, from fashion and home marketing through to beauty and electrical, but none more so than in the two major campaign strands – Christmas and supporting the promise to be Never Knowingly Undersold.

Never Knowingly Undersold

All John Lewis marketing is built upon deep human truths. For the Never Knowingly Undersold campaigns the focus has been on the emotional power of permanence in a world of offers and discounts. For Christmas campaigns, John Lewis has presented itself as the home of more thoughtful gifting, leveraging universal insights around the effort and excitement involved in choosing the perfect gift.

All the campaigns were designed to be social at their heart previewing on facebook and airing on TV during most socially active programming. As a result many of the campaigns have trended on Twitter globally and have gone on to receive over 10 million YouTube hits between them.

What’s more all campaigns made full use of John Lewis’s owned media, with windows, bags and bespoke products dedicated to extending their reach.

But most incredibly John Lewis’s marketing over the past three years has had a powerful cultural impact, with the music featured reaching the top of the charts and the campaigns inspiring huge PR responses, many spoof versions, as well as Church Sermons, ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4, and over 7000 official school assemblies.

The end result has been year-on-year increases in customer visits and spend, leading to many record sales weeks, and a profit return on marketing investment of over £5 per £1 spent.

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