Waitrose Christmas: Plus Points

This week's Campaign magazine takes a look how well retail brands performed over Christmas after the now annual festive advertising blitz.

 "Christmas 2013 was the first time that UK advertising got the Super Bowl treatment" said the magazine in its overview, with Stuart's work for Waitrose's campaign featuring prominently. 

Note the boy in the hat from "Community Matters" and the 3.1% increase in sales from 2012, driven by their festive marketing and three Stuart-helmed spots. Catch them below and get back in that rosy-cheeked Christmas sentimentality.

Some of our recent Christmas work went down exceedingly well with the magazine and its online readers in a poll to find the most-loved Christmas campaigns of the year.

Nice Shirt were the only production company to have two spots in the top ten, with Stuart the only director to have helmed two spots this year's top picks.

Waitrose "The Story of Giving Back" made the Top Ten, despite being not the main focus of Waitrose's Christmas campaign this year (for that, you can see Heston weave his magic here). 

It polled 0.97% of all votes - a relatively small number one might think, but when I tell you that Hungary's rate of inflation remained at a 40-year low of 0.9 percent for the second month running in December, I think we all know the significance of the number. 

Debenhams "Wishes Made Fabulous" came in at a very respectable number three. 

Not quite Christmas Number One on Top of The Pops, but when you're up against the behemoths of Sainsbury's and John Lewis (Westlife and Bob The Builder to continue the Xmas POTP connection), third sounds pretty good to us. 

Waitrose'The Story of Giving the Perfect Christmas Dinner' by Stuart Douglas

In the second of three spots Stuart is directing this Christmas for Waitrose, 'The Story of the Perfect Christmas Meal', begins not on the big day itself but many months beforehand. 

Filmed on location at a turkey farm in deepest Lincolnshire, the spot shows the lengthy turkey tending our farmer goes through over the course of a year in the run up to Christmas. The stars of the film are the fowls themselves as they are cared for, fed and watched over by the farmer through rain, wind and snow. We end the spot in the family home, our farmer taking a well-earned rest before sitting down with the family for a delicious and well-deserved Christmas meal. Of turkey of course.

Stuart expertly crafts the farmer's story as we see the months roll by; revealing a wonderfully warm portrait of a farmer's work, aided by Roger McGough's cozy voice-over. The final scene with the family gathered around the table eagerly anticipating their Christmas lunch, will definitely put you in the mood for the fast-approaching festive season.

Debenhams"Wishes Made Fabulous"by Stuart Douglas

Stuart directs a wonderfully epic festive finale in the latest Life Made Fabulous campaign in a dazzling spot full of magic, wonder and romance.

The film continues the bold, cinematic style Stuart established in his two previous spots, with a cast of glamorous beauties who find their paths mysteriously intertwined. Centre to this story is a lovestruck couple who reunite at a glittering ice rink in a stunning castle location.

Along the way, we see an enchanting number of scenes and characters, all resplendent in their chic outfits from the Designers at Debenhams collection. One of the designers, Julien Macdonald, described the spot as “capturing everything that makes this time of year so special”.

The evocative Foxes track returns again, this time with a festive flourish, adding a sense of wonder and drama. In a first for Debenhams, the spot will also be shown in cinemas.

Stuart comes up trumps again delivering a dazzling film that is as extravagant as it is heartwarming - the perfect culmination to the department store’s 200th anniversary year.

Christmas Tree

Nice Shirt has a Christmas tree...

...that's not your average Christmas "tree". And yes, that is old used storage boxes. 

A tidy-up of Nice Shirt left us with a lot of old boxes we needed to get rid of- particularly these rather nice pine-coloured boxes. The festive time was upon us and we wanted to get a tree, so we thought we'd get a bit creative (and environmentally friendly, naturally).

Everything is handmade & recycled (except the lights- we're not that ingenious), from the paper chains to the rather fetching black shiny "tinsel", which is in fact tape from old Digis that we were also getting rid of: 

Eco-mental! We still have a sh*t-tonne of these tapes we're trying to get rid of if you're interested. 

Adam made the star a-top the wondrous tree.

Paper chains! So retro. It's just so poetic that that which was once a tree is now a tree again. Or something. 

And behold, our festive tree. The more we look at it, the more it starts to resemble some kind of Christmas robot, but hey. 

Decorating the Tree

A little video of the office getting it's Xmas on. It's no National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, but it's very pleasant to watch.