John Lewis knows how to get talked about

Two years ago it was predicted that every £1 that John Lewis spends on its campaigns translates into £5 of profit

(John Lewis/PA)

By now, we all have a view on the John Lewis Christmas campaign, right? But that’s the point. In all the social media – and traditional media – chatter since #OnTheMoon was launched on Friday, perhaps the biggest misconception has been that this is an “advert” or “an advertising campaign”.

Rather, #OnTheMoon is a thoroughly modern integrated marketing campaign. The media gasp about “a £7m ad push” but look closer – bought media space for this campaign is relatively small. Sure, it was “premiered” in an ad slot during Channel 4’s Gogglebox, but this scheduling gives us a clue about the strategy. Gogglebox is hardly a mass-marketing medium. The approach was instead designed to boost talkability.

The campaign itself kicked off on Friday morning with editorial outlets scrabbling to be the first to show the film (free of charge, of course). In the first hour after “launch” there were 22,500 tweets and retweets, as people shared the film. Even before this, the PR campaign was running strongly, with the #OnTheMoon hashtag leaked earlier last week and speculation that Oasis’s “Half the World Away” was to be the soundtrack – it was – creating feverish anticipation.

But the campaign is far more than just PR and advertising. As John Lewis begins the construction of a giant moon in its London flagship store for kids to play in, it is also employing experiential marketing.

And then there is the charity tie-up with Age UK, which resonates with the loneliness of the old man in the film and may indeed reflect the harsh reality of Christmas for many pensioners in our country. This gives the campaign a social purpose over and above simply flogging us telescopes and iPods.

In other words, there are multiple touchpoints for John Lewis’s emotional message of “thoughtful giving this Christmas”.

But will it drive sales, you ask? The answer is, yes, it probably will. Two years ago, econometric modelling by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising predicted that every £1 that John Lewis spends on its campaigns translates into £5 of profit. If this year’s efforts emulate this, bosses will be #OverTheMoon.