Baby Chick Funks Out in New Asda Spot

Last night, the latest in Asda's Beat Not Match campaign aired with a new Easter ad, as the retailer gears up for this key trading moment in the retail calendar.

Building on the success of the recent Snowman and Scarecrow advertising campaigns, the latest Asda campaign uses Easter chicks to highlight Asda’s commitment to beating rather than matching prices – a tactic its competitors rely on - and to remind customers that “you’re better off Asda”.

The 30 second “Something to tweet about” ad premiered during ITV’s Emmerdale last night and opened with the camera panning across three little Easter chicks sitting outside their different coloured birdhouses perched on a tree at the end of a garden - each one representing a different competitor supermarket. But the last, slightly bigger and better green birdhouse, is pulsating to the sound of the eighties disco classic ‘Funky Town’.

Out pops Asda’s Funky Chick – clearly 10% funkier than the others. He begins to groove along to the beat showing off his dancing skills by moonwalking, sliding and tapping his toes to the tune. Bigger and more impressive than all the other chicks, the ad reinforces the fact that with Asda’s Price Guarantee, customers will always be 10% better off at Asda. The first three supermarket chicks watch on, realising that whilst they are all doing the same thing, matching each other on price, Asda does something very different - it beats.

Three additional TVCs related to Easter are in the campaign and will champion the quality of Asda’s hero items this Easter, including its grass-fed lamb, line-caught cod and the novelty, limited edition bunny-shaped crumpets.

Stephen Smith, Chief Customer Officer, Asda said: “Easter has always been a time for celebration, with families all over the UK getting together to share in the occasion. Our latest ad captures this sense of fun and brings a little of Asda’s well-known personality to our advertising, this time in the form of a dancing chick!”

Asda’s new TV ads will be supported by a fully integrated social media campaign, which invites fans to create their own personalised chick by choreographing their chick’s moves and selecting the accompanying dance track. Users will be able to share their personalised chick online with a fun message using the #AsdaChick hashtag. The microsite will go live later this week.

The social media activity follows Asda’s popular Lindt Bunny hunt, which last month rewarded Facebook fans that correctly guessed the number of bunnies appearing in a Facebook video with a £50 prize. The game proved highly popular, generating 30,000 comments and 5,200 likes, highlighting to customers the unbeatable value of the Lindt bunny at Asda, which is just £1 (for 100g).

The latest ads have been created by VCCP and support Asda’s five-year strategy to redefine value retailing in the UK, by championing price, quality and range. In late 2013, the retailer announced plans to invest £1.25 billion in price and quality by 2018, closing the price gap to the discounters and further improving quality. It will also increase access to Asda through physical store development and growing its online operations.