Give the people what they wouldn’t expect

Last year, amid an industry clamour for more disruption, grit and novelty in Christmas advertising, we doubled down on something unfashionably powerful for Waitrose: familiarity and emotion. 'The Perfect Gift' was a generous dose of festive schmaltz, tapping into the UK’s perennial love of romcoms to land a simple truth: food can say what gifts can’t. In short, we gave people what they want at Christmas.

The industry seemed to like it. More importantly, people in the real world sought it out, loved it, talked about it and shared it in their millions - and Waitrose’s brand and business benefited in kind.

But at Christmas, brands are expected to ‘go big or go home’. It’s the UK’s Super Bowl moment: still the one time of year the public actively cares about ads (even if interest and conversation has been declining since 2013).

What people don’t expect outside of Christmas

What people don’t expect from Waitrose, or from supermarkets, or most brands, in general, is to be entertained in the same way throughout the rest of the year. A sci-fi blockbuster about an astronaut escaping a space station, racing home to the food (and supermarket) he misses most, soundtracked by an Aerosmith banger, doesn’t look or feel like a typical category ad.

And that’s entirely the point.

This is a campaign with no specific products to sell. It isn’t anchored to a seasonal, sales-driving moment. It doesn’t lean on rational proof points or a shopping list of reasons to believe.

Instead, it’s a campaign designed to deliver a shared point of view on what it means to live your life around food, as Waitrose’s passionate partners and their food-loving customers do.

It’s a story precision-engineered to surprise, entertain and move audiences in a way they didn’t see coming. And, in doing so, make them feel differently about Waitrose than they might today.

If 'The Perfect Gift' reinforced why Waitrose is the home of the best food at Christmas, this campaign is designed to drive reappraisal of Waitrose as the home of food lovers all year round.

Putting the ‘zing’ back into Waitrose

That reappraisal starts with a key perception and behaviour challenge, captured perfectly by a lapsed customer in Waitrose’s ethnographic research: “They’ve lost their ‘zing’. I’d probably go back more often if they got their tangible love of food back.”

Waitrose’s brand brief last year distilled the key communications shift required: “For too long we’ve been guilty of doing ‘food to think good about’ advertising. We need to inject more emotion back into the brand and its role in food lovers’ lives.”

Our creative approach to bring back the zing is built around three principles.

We see the world through food lovers’ eyes
Waitrose sees the world through food lovers’ eyes, not through the eyes of the category, or the ‘average shopper’. At the heart of what makes Waitrose and its customers different is a belief that food is more than just fuel: it’s a way of life.

Food lovers immerse themselves in food culture through social, TV and cookbooks; they eat out regularly and plan holidays around food; they genuinely enjoy the act of cooking, sharing and eating. “Food is a way of life” is the mantra we’ve turned into a beacon for food lovers everywhere in this campaign.

We are fearlessly entertaining about food
We believe emotion and entertainment aren’t just for Christmas, they can be a competitive advantage for brands brave enough to commit to them year-round. That’s why we’ve leaned into epic, emotive storytelling in our hero film, rather than the proof points and promotions that dominate the supermarket sea of sameness.

And just like we did at Christmas, we’ve had fun pushing the campaign beyond the film too: from fuelling UFO conspiracy theories on Reddit and social ahead of launch, to marketing Gastronaut like an epic sci-fi movie in out-of-home.

We are unmistakably Waitrose
As with Christmas, we’re building distinctive, consistent brand cues throughout our story: a fresh riff on a familiar entertainment genre, filmic “Waitrose presents…” opening titles, and key moments for the brand and Partners to feature in the story.

Early System1 testing has already confirmed the ‘creative dividend’ of these combined principles with both our core target of food lovers and the wider public. We’re hoping to see those early signals translate into real-world performance now the campaign has launched.

Bonfires and fireworks

If, as our client Helen Carroll (head of brand and customer experience) puts it, Christmas is “our strategy on steroids” — a six-week shortcut to quick wins — then 'The Gastronaut' is our strategy on a disciplined daily gym programme, focused on the kind of slow and steady gains that compound over time (with a huge dose of creative creatine to help it along the way).

We believe brands need to be able to switch between both modes: investing in a combination of ‘bonfires and fireworks’ across the year, and across channels.

So if 'The Perfect Gift' was our firework moment - built to generate rapid cut-through and conversation over Christmas that converted quickly into sales - 'The Gastronaut' is our slower-burning bonfire. It’s designed to build reach and frequency over time, repeating and reinforcing the feeling of the brand in people’s minds, and ultimately making trade-driving activity around key seasonal moments more efficient.

A recipe to crack the modern media mille-feuille

What we hope that both our Christmas campaign and this campaign will demonstrate over time is a winning recipe for brand-building in the modern, messy world of fragmented attention:

Prioritising entertainment and emotion all year, not just for Christmas.

Combining comforting familiarity with the power of the unexpected to both reinforce existing positive perceptions and build new ones.

Showing up in audiences’ lives with both fast, famous fireworks and slower-burning bonfires to build brands in different channels and at different speeds.

And perhaps the most important (but often forgotten) ingredient of all: a powerful insight about your audience that shows you see the world through their eyes, not just through the eyes of your category.

Nick Exford is the head of strategy for Wonderhood Studios