Argos / PHD
Find the gift they’ll love with Argos.
Details
Think Christmas, you think toys and then you think Argos (& The Late Late Toy Show, of course!) With toys making up 50% of its annual gift guide, Argos wanted a big big focus on this year’s toy range. To promote the huge range available and the publication of the gift guide itself, there’s only one show to be associated with and that’s The Late Late Toy Show!
The KPI was to drive awareness and consideration of the Argos toy range in the lead up to the Toy Show, while also keeping the Argos brand front and centre of the campaign. The 2020 brand message is ‘make it a magical Christmas’ and the magic moment of the whole campaign was to not just inspire the kids but the adults buying the gifts.
Our idea
The Late Late Toy Show is one of the biggest shows of the year with 1.7 million people tuning in to watch it this year. The entire country relied on Tubs to restore the magic of Christmas and he delivered!
Each year there is a massive build-up to the show across all media at least a month before it hits our screens so we created a cross-platform campaign for Argos that would deliver 'practical creativity' but ultimate excitement during this period, taking over all Toy Show content on Irishmirror.ie including content written by our commercial writer, curated specifically around the Toy Show.
Campaign elements
The pre-show build-up campaign saw Argos sponsor all of our Toy Show content and run high impact display across relevant sections targeting Argos’s ideal audience. We also created this piece of immersive content about the Toy Show where readers could find some escapism in Toy Show joy, like the top 20 Toy Show moments over the years, a poll to vote for the number 1 Toy Show Christmas jumper, plus all they need to know about this year's show; and blended throughout was content promoting Argos’s top toys of 2020.
That was the digital campaign, running for three weeks prior to the day the Toy Show aired. In print, we put together an 8-page supplement all around The Late Late Toy Show, similar to the online storyboard, with the focal piece being the top toys at Argos this Christmas. The 'Gift Guide' (supplement) was printed the same day as the Toy Show, the perfect prelude to the show happening that night.
Additional elements
> A branded masthead bar appeared on every page of Irishmirror.ie on the day of the Toy Show, taking readers to the sponsored content area.
> Pre-promotion of the Gift Guide supplement in the paper via 25x4s the week of the show + a front-page splash the day of, as well as social promotion on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
> Disruptive frame format, executed on a DPS spread, published in the paper the day after the show for extra brand points while post-show excitement was still high.
Results
Every element of this cross-platform campaign did what it was intended to do.
> Page views delivered in full with high engagement on the immersive content piece and an exceptionally high dwell time - a sign of the times as people sought escapism content.
> All display exceeded easily with over 1.5m impressions served over the duration of the campaign.
> Additional promotion of sponsored content via the masthead bar on the day of the Toy Show appearing on every page of the website brought our readers directly to the sponsored content when clicked on.