What Moz the Monster tells about the changing media landscape

By now pretty much everyone will have seen the latest John Lewis Christmas ad, starring a loveable monster that lives under a young boy’s bed. Without giving away any plot details to the few that haven’t watched it, it all ends happily thanks to a thoughtfully chosen gift.

 

Over the past few years Christmas adverts have become a fixture of the festive season, with the media (and public) eagerly awaiting the offerings from the likes of John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer. All sides seem to be involved in a creative arms race, with ever-more sophisticated production values and talent involved – Moz cost an alleged £7m and is directed by Oscar-winning director Michel Gondry, while M&S has recruited Paddington (and Angela Rippon) to head its Christmas push.

 

What’s most interesting to me is not which is the ‘best’ advert or how much of an impact it has on sales, but what Christmas adverts tell us about the changing media landscape. Not long ago the only way to ensure that these productions were watched would have been to spend millions booking high profile TV slots and hoping that viewers would be there and watching. This has changed – obviously ads are still shown on TV, but a lot of the viewers are online, with people watching them via company websites and YouTube.

That means that PR and social media are now the key channels for driving ad awareness and views. For example, the John Lewis ad was all over the media, from the marketing press to the tabloids. The BBC ran a piece analysing social media responses to Moz and his antics, while other brands aimed to get on the act, running surveys on which was the most popular Christmas advert. M&S even had to deny that the Paddington advert featured swearing (obviously not by its Peruvian star).

I think this is part of a wider, growing trend. Many people either don’t watch TV adverts or they simply don’t register on their consciousness. You might click on an informational ad after an online search or watch a hyped campaign during a major programme or event, such as the World Cup, but we’re now too sophisticated and short of time to discover them for ourselves.

Therefore, you need PR and social media buzz to get people to notice them, which is a complete turn round from the old model of advertising leading the marketing mix. Christmas adverts aren’t the only example of this – TV programmes, films and books are all trailed in the media, rather than relying on ads. PR people should therefore step up and use this trend to justify having a greater say in marketing decision making – and a larger slice of budgets. Communication is vital to business success – even when it comes to monsters under the bed.