The first Spar Slovenija international Christmas campaign was based on the ASPIAG idea of combining the Christmas campaign budgets for three countries – Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. The larger budget gave us the option of high-quality production, but also challenged us to create something that would justify it.
To avoid symbolism that would be considered inappropriate in any of the countries, we organised a one-day workshop where we looked for common points and differences. Even though we researched neighbouring countries, the workshop revealed some specificities we had to avoid when designing the creative solution. The countries involved have different gift-giving traditions, holiday decorations, traditional Christmas meals, etc. which is why we decided to avoid these topics in our creative solution. In the end, we chose two universal values that are also key values of the international SPAR brand as our starting point – trust and interpersonal relationships.
The international campaign ‘You are the best gift’ celebrates the Christmas spirit by focusing on the most precious gift – interpersonal relationships. The main campaign element – TV ad – was supported by an integrated campaign which included product and price communication on TV, as part of outdoor advertising, online and on social media.
A year later we updated the campaign with a series of online videos made in collaboration with the Senior Citizens Home Ljubljana Bežigrad. Their stories highlighted the message of our campaign on importance of human interactions. When asked what the best gifts they received were, many recalled their first love or the birth of their children.
campaign ad recall
YouTube video views in all three countries during the campaign
Facebook shares in Slovenia