Marks & Spencer x Bridget Jones' Diary - Christmas Must Haves

For all retailers, Christmas presents a huge opportunity to boost sales and reach a highly engaged audience. Often referred to as the UK’s equivalent of America’s Super Bowl, retailers compete for share of voice in a highly competitive pre-Christmas environment. Marks & Spencer were keen to develop an engaging campaign with various elements, designed to coincide with product demand based on their customer research.

Marks and Spencer’s creative agency GREY London got in touch with Born Licensing to discuss one of the scenes from the script they had developed. In this scene, GREY London wanted to feature a well-known movie clip that the British public associate with watching at Christmas. It was our job to help them explore various options and begin facilitating the licensing process.

Over the course of a number of months, we presented and explored various iconic movie moments to the agency team. The agency shortlisted their preferences and we began the process of initial discussions with a variety of Rights Holders to explore the feasibility of the creative and negotiate fees.

The final movie clip that was chosen was the opening sequence of Bridget Jones’s Diary, starring Renee Zellweger. The iconic scene features a pyjama-clad Bridget singing along to ‘All By Myself’ with a glass of wine. Being licensing agents for the Rights Holders of the Bridget Jones’s Diary franchise, Universal Studios, we were able to leverage an already-strong relationship to ensure a smooth contractual and approval process.

Universal Studios, the Rights Holders of Bridget Jones’s Diary and its franchise, were closely involved at all stages of the creative process, to ensure the brand was represented fully and accurately. As licensing agents, Born Licensing took the lead with the approval process, communicating scripts, storyboards, edits and final material between all parties to streamline the process and allow Marks & Spencer and GREY London to focus on the creative aspects.

Launching 6 weeks before Christmas, while shoppers were in peak gift-buying mode, the 60-second core commercial featured on multiple TV channels in prime-time slots. The Bridget Jones moment was also extended to a dedicated 20-second spin-off clip, involving more singing along to ‘All By Myself’ to bring home the Christmas feeling even more.