Boots Has Found Its Festive Funny Bone

In being funny, celebrity-free, and relatable, Boots’ Christmas campaign has proved that going against the status quo can pay off. While most brands focus on the heartfelt rollercoasters of Christmas time, the beauty brand has honed in on the humour behind gift giving, and the feeling of being utterly obsessed with a present. 

For Gifts They’ll Really Love captures the moments of elation felt when a desired gift is opened, as opposed to having to feign appreciation. Thanks to its creative agency, WPP, it’s captured this in style, with a mum seemingly permanently attached to her new LED Light Therapy Mask, a girl who’s possessive over her Dyson Airwrap, and a man in love with his Oral-B electric toothbrush. All to a techno cover of Shepard’s Bell. 

“We were really keen that it was joyful,” begins Charlotte Lock, customer and marketing director at Boots. “We really wanted to leave customers happy; tonally, it was absolutely no sad advertising, really joyful.” 

Sitting alongside Lock, following premiere of the ad, is Pip Hulbert, VML's chief client officer, who together recently unveiled the brand’s new platform, Give It Some Boots.

“Working with Charlotte, we felt really empowered to be in that collaborative partnership to evolve the brand and define the next chapter for Boots,” outlines Hulbert. “There was so much excitement around the new brand platform, and it was just the right environment to bring it to Christmas.”

Humour as a focal point

Humour at the centre of the festive campaign – something Lock describes as a way of giving customers confidence with their gifting. 

The brand, she says, has a unique relationship with its customers; its there through the ups and the downs – whether its cancer diagnoses through its partnership with Macmillan, giving 750,000 flu vaccinations, erectile dysfunction, menopause, or endometriosis.

Lock explains how her first ever job was at Boots “selling suncream in the summer and perfume in the winter” in Bradford Arndale; “I had such a laugh when I was there,” she says. “I know that customers have got that intimacy with the brand, and when you have that, you also have permission to laugh at life because life can be quite tough. I really wanted to bring that.”

And humour is nothing new for the 180-year-old brand, having shown some tongue-and-cheek work across the years; Lock nods towards its 2007 Here Come The Girls work, wanting to bring back the “cheeky and sassy” vibe it once championed.

For Hulbert, the work has given Boots the ablity to be relevant for customers year-round – not just one story at Christmas time. And while the campaign includes a hero 90-second ad, it also includes OOH, social cut downs, and 20 different edits of the main film.

“There's just lots of audiences and relevancy. That's the challenge with Boots, and that's what I think as marketeers is exciting because you need to be accessible. You need to have breadth. You need to have appeal,” she says. “We wanted then to add that Boots stamp on it of authenticity, credibility, confidence, and swagger.”

The duo themselves laugh at some of the ad’s relatable moments, including trying to get that last drop of serum out of the bottle… only for it to land on the floor. 

“We wanted to create scenarios that you could see yourself in,” Lock points out. "The reality is every drop costs. We know that it's valuable, and to make a funny story out of that insight was an absolute hoot.”

Going against the (festive) grain

Unlike most ads on show this year, Boots doesn’t star a celebrity – a choice the pair say was a no-brainer. 

“We deliberately kept away from that because, again, it's relevancy – having appeal to be relevant to customers that they can see themselves,” explains Hulbert. “If we had a celebrity gifting, it would have a totally different storytelling.” 

The process of casting, she adds, was a long, thoughtful one, making sure the right ages of talent showed breadth and appeal. And it wasn’t just actors cast in the work; given Boots’ large range of products in its catalog, how did they pick which featured in the ad? 

Lock reveals the team purposely picked products that audiences might be surprised that Boots sell, including the LED face masks that are “everywhere” at the minute, alongside its exclusive fan favourite No7. 

“I remember being in a meeting with Procter & Gamble. I was new to Boots, being told about the phenomenal success of the Oral-B electric toothbrush and the amount of sales that go through gifting. Immediately we had to put that in the ad. It's just too funny.”

The unique nature of the work extends to the music: a techno rendition of the classic Christmas carol, Shepard’s Bell. Hulbert – a house DJ herself outside of work – jokes about when she first heard the track. 

“The first thing I said to the team was that I loved it – and because they know that I DJ and play that kind of stuff, I thought they’d done it deliberately to wind me up,” she laughs. 

The unexpected nature of the track is allowing Boots to define its next chapter, leaving audiences to almost double-look at the work. This extends to some of the smaller cut-downs that feature different content from the hero film. 

Lock describes her favourite asset, of a woman putting on her YSL lipstick at work. “She obsesses about putting it on, and I love the scene where she's putting it on in the kitchen in a mirror, but the mirror is a toaster in her office kitchen, and this guy behind her waiting to put his toast in patiently.”

Creating such content around Christmas time is risky, Lock admits, but she again praises the confidence that the Give It Some Boots platform has given the brand. “It’s created a springboard of confidence and permission to take some creative risks, but not just for the sake of it. Recognising that if you don't cut through the noise creatively, it is a complete waste of money.

“The bravery isn't just for the sake of it; it's genuinely because there's a lot of advertising that people don't notice. If you're not going to take a risk when there's such an attention economy, you are literally going to get ignored.”

Championing creators

Boots is forever championing its arsenal of creators (a number of whom were present at the launch). This year, beginning with its Black Friday sales, it has also introduced a Black Advantage Card, where influencers are given £1,000 to spend on and gift their community. 

Whether a nano influencer or a macro influencer, Lock notes that Boots is celebrating the investment they put into their communities.  “They're people that lead, support, and nurture a community. So we're gifting them the ability to gift their communities, and that's off the back of stuff that we've done with influencer communities, which we'll be doing up until Christmas as well.” 

Audiences can expect to see some familiar faces and voices across Boots’ posts between now and Christmas, with the intent of giving people useful insight and gifting inspiration – from a mini content series, to some “iconic” gifting content.

And in reflecting over all its festive content, Hulbert is quick to praise Lock for her debut year – and first Christmas – with Boots. “It's rare to find a client who is a genuine marketer who’s brave,” she describes. “Charlotte is that she's such a fast thinker from insight through to execution, and look at what we've achieved in under a year.

“She’s allowed WPP to bring ideas and discuss them – and that seems obvious because that should be our job, but it doesn't always easily happen.”

Boots is certainly giving it some this Christmas.