Title	HOW CURRYS PC WORLD FOUND ITS VOICE AT CHRISTMAS
Brand	DIXONS CARPHONE PLC
Product/Service	RETAIL
Category	A01. Creative Effectiveness
Entrant	AMVBBDO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	AMVBBDO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	O POSITIVE New York, USA

Name	Company	Position
Bridget Angear	AMVBBDO	Chief Strategy Officer
Craig Mawdsley	AMVBBDO	Chief Strategy Officer
David Edwards	AMVBBDO	Head of Stragegy
Tom Claridge	AMVBBDO	Strategy Director
Paul Brazier	AMVBBDO	Chief Creative Officer
Adrian Rossi	AMVBBDO	Executive Creative Director
Alex Grieve	AMVBBDO	Executive Creative Director
Ant Nelson	AMVBBDO	Art Director
Mike Sutherland	AMVBBDO	Copywriter
Anita Sasdy	AMVBBDO	Agency Producer
David Shane	O POSITIVE	Director
Nell Jordan	O POSITIVE	Production Company Produceer
Paul Watts	The Quarry	Editor
Aaron Reynolds	Wave	Sound Engineer

Brief Explanation

This paper tells the story of how a brand, hitherto unknown in Christmas advertising, made it to the top of the advertising charts with an award-winning, fame-driving campaign. It’s the story of how we created an integrated campaign spanning the category purchase journey, with a fresh, tradition-busting insight around families and Christmas-time. It’s about how we realised that we needed to craft our own path to success, with a campaign which was unmistakeably Currys PC World. Ultimately though, it’s about how we captured the Christmas conversation and managed to win Commercial of the Year at the British Arrows, winning more arrows than any other commercial in UK history. In 2015, we realised that Christmas was such an important sales-driving time of year, that we couldn’t waste the opportunity to capture the UK’s attention and earn some of their festive spend for ourselves. Despite tough market competition and a decreasing media spend, we unearthed a unique way to make our mark on the Christmas advertising scene, something we’d not previously attempted. Our objectives were to: 1. Drive brand preference at Christmas by demonstrating empathy and assistance 2. Create a famous, involving campaign that would deliver earned reach to compensate for reduced spend 3. Drive sales and profit returns during the crucial peak trading period Despite the considerable risk that the public wouldn’t appreciate a brand poking fun at sacred family rituals of Christmas, we planned and executed an award-winning integrated campaign driving up brand preference and retail sales. The incremental retail sales value reached £25.8 million, working out at £5.01 incremental retail sales value for every £1 spent. Our parent company, Dixons Carphone, reported overall group sales up 5% year on year for the peak period and record profit figures (driven largely by strong peak trading) of circa £450m for the year as a whole. We defied the saccharine Christmas norm, creating our own ‘Super Bowl’ moment and winning industry acclaim for our advertising. Sources: see appendix, Millward Brown & Gain Theory econometrics.