Sainsbury's and AnalogFolk are Getting Britain Singing this Christmas

Sainsbury’s has launched the interactive part of its huge 2016 festive campaign, getting the country singing along while keeping the message that ‘Christmas is for Sharing’ at the campaign’s heart. 

A key element of this year’s integrated campaign is ‘The Greatest Gift’ - a joyous Christmas musical created in stop frame animation featuring vocals by James Corden. It tells the story of Dave, a hard-working and devoted Dad, who realises that the greatest gift he can give his family this Christmas is his time.  

If you’ve seen the ad, you’re probably already humming the song ‘The Greatest Gift’. To seize the earworm by the tail and get the whole nation singing this Christmas, AnalogFolk have created a host of sing-a-long opportunities, the centrepiece of which is the first karaoke Snapchat lens created for a UK brand – which is also the first lens of any sort for a UK supermarket. The lens, live for 24 hours on the 2nd of December, turns users into a ‘Dave-a-like’ and allows them to share their festive singing skills. It is also the first time a lens will use a song created bespoke for a brand.

This is supported across the campaign on other social channels, with a competition that amplifies user-generated-content and even a Facebook-Live event broadcasting from an interactive karaoke-booth at the Intu shopping centre in Derby.

To wrap up the campaign, the best karaoke vocals from across the festive period will replace James Corden’s voice in a special version of the TV ad released in the week before the big day.

Sainsbury’s campaign this year is helping to raise funds for new parent accommodation at Great Ormond Street Hospital to help parents to be able to stay near to their children who are staying in the hospital during the festive period and beyond.  AnalogFolk is working with Great Ormond Street Hospital to recreate the karaoke experience within the hospital at a special Sainsbury’s hosted Christmas party for children, parents and carers.

The digital activity aims to highlight Sainsbury’s message about ‘The Greatest Gift’ being to spend quality time together at Christmas, sharing great moments across a breadth of channels and content. Elements range from a bespoke, stop-motion, film creation app, to crowd-sourced festive food reviews.

Poppy Shute, Campaign Manager at Sainsbury’s, said “We wanted the nation to love the song and Dave’s world as much as we did, and working with AnalogFolk, we made sure that people could be part of it throughout the entire festive period”

Simon Richings, AnalogFolk’s Creative Partner, said "We knew pretty early that we wanted to get people singing along with the ‘The Greatest Gift’, and it’s very satisfying to be able to make that happen so seamlessly with the Sing with Sainsbury’s Snapchat lens."