Doing the Christmas Double: Inside EE’s Festive Debut

Christmas, for many these days, is far from a tranquil experience. So, for its first festive campaign, mobile network operator EE chose to reflect the realities of the busiest time of year, whether people are hosting family for dinner, visiting, or perhaps even both in a single day.

The result, ‘The Christmas Double’, was inspired by research that found over a quarter of the nation (27 per cent) would be doing double duties of hosting and visiting this Christmas, offering EE a chance to showcase how it could keep customers connected wherever they are. 

“It’s about telling the stories that matter to our customers and trying to tell them authentically, in a different way than how others do,” outlines Kelly Engstrom, brand and marketing communications director at EE. “Christmas is a massive moment, and it felt missing from our repertoire since we relaunched the brand. We’ve talked about bedtimes, working from home, holidays, starting school, but not Christmas. It felt like a missing piece of the jigsaw.”

The campaign was created through the Publicis One model alongside EE’s bespoke WPP Media team, OpenConnect, and OOH specialists Posterscope.

Developing The Christmas Double

The brief was to help EE own the Christmas conversation both among consumers and advertisers during the highly competitive Golden Quarter, making it a bigger challenge for the brand to stand out.

"It's really about driving brand closeness and then fundamentally around consideration of the network. The challenge was on for the guys to create that standout closeness and consideration in probably the most competitive time of the year,” Engstrom reveals.

The main film moves at a million miles as it follows a mother and her two children visiting both sides of the family in a single day while showcasing the role EE’s WiFi plays throughout, from GPS assistance, virtual headsets, to video calls in the back of the car. Playing over is the 1989 house hit, ‘Ride on Time’ by Black Box.

Describing Christmas as “a season of connectivity”, Saatchi & Saatchi executive creative director Will John believes that EE could make itself a part of the conversation by showcasing all the services it offers in support - from online shopping, tracking deliveries, to streaming favourite Christmas songs.

“EE has always tried to ingrain itself into people’s lives in meaningful ways and during emotionally charged moments - and what could be more emotionally charged than Christmas?" he asks.

The marketing team is also working with its agency partners through a more holistic approach - Publicis Groupe (mainly Saatchi & Saatchi and Digitas on this campaign) and WPP Media.

“It allows us to look at the entire funnel,” explains Engstrom. “Everything is so fragmented now - different audiences, different channels - so we need different types of communication.”

On working with the new model from WPP Media, she adds that it has helped deliver more live data and with AI learning, the marketing team has been faster to react and adapt to reach audiences across their campaign lifespans.

“A lot of the work that we're doing is leaning on the insights that we can get from WPP to make sure that we're optimising and that we're as efficient and effective as we possibly can be throughout the campaign, not just when we plan the campaigns,” she explains.

A Ubiquitous Media Approach

Reaching audiences has never been harder, especially during the noisy Christmas period when attention is scarce. Social activity for the campaign runs across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and Pinterest, aiming to follow the same transition between hosting and guesting and gifting using 30-second spots, while also capturing the duality of consumers’ lives and connectivity needs at Christmas.

Another focus of the activity is to capture the leaning-in attention of podcast listeners when they take time to relax. Influential podcast and radio hosts such as Romesh Ranganathan, Graham Norton and Jessie Ware have been recruited help bring EE into the Christmas conversation and link EE to real stories around hosting and guesting during the festive period.

Partnerships include sponsorships of Bauer shows, tapping into the different types of Christmases, with presenters hosting a special Christmas dinner alongside listeners who are the guest of honour. These are manifested through an events and social video series.

“We saw a strategic opportunity in audio to immerse EE in festive conversations and to engage hosts and guests in a meaningful way, based on contextual cues. There is a significant seasonal uplift in consumption (+17 per cent for radio, +5 per cent for podcasts), which helps to cut through the Christmas chaos, as audiences turn to podcasts for entertainment and to relax. People are three times more likely to feel positive emotions as a result,” says Anna Martorana, head of strategy and planning at WPP Media.

Contextual messaging will also be distributed for guests through in-car audio and in the home (for hosting) via connected devices, becoming part of the festive soundtrack.

Meanwhile, the shared experiences of people going to the cinema and watching together on TV remain key too.

“We didn't want to go really traditional. We wanted to make sure that we were everywhere where our audience was,” adds Martorana. “We had to rely on ruthless audience understanding so that we could be super contextual and relevant, but we also pulled together an epic array of media partners and talent.”

She cites the use of WPP’s AI tool WPP Open as being fundamental in aiding that consumer understanding, helping to create nuance about how platforms such as Reddit and Pinterest are used to help their users with Christmas planning and making sure EE features there too.

“It was thinking about how we tied into where our audience is and speak to them there… It was really all about not just using one big platform but thinking about the moments that audiences were feeling Christmassy and speaking to them the right way there,” Martorana adds.

A partnership with Samsung has also been formed to allow EE to offer its customers the chance to participate in Christmas giveaways each day and make them feel “extra special,” highlights Engstrom, who won't commit to doing it all again next year. She says the strategy is about activating during "moments that matter" where EE has a role to play.

“Christmas is the one time of year when every person in the UK sits up and almost welcomes advertising into their lives,” claims John. “They lean into what every brand is bringing at that time, so as a brand, you have to think about what your gift to the nation is, and I think it's really critical to get the tone of your work right,”

So while ‘The Christmas Double’ is a maiden campaign for EE, it has attempted to be anything but a traditional offering. By putting real lives and connections at the heart of its festive debut, EE hopes to make this season somehow feel just that little bit easier - and a lot more connected.