Contact Us
close
.jpg)
Christmas is biggest moment in grocery. It offers the greatest opportunity for retailers to build brand love, drive footfall to stores, and secure spending throughout one of the most demanding periods of the year.
But the holiday season has become ever more difficult for families, as financial pressures and emotional expectations make the demands of the season feel overwhelming. As the cost of living continues to rise, many are facing the impossible challenge of balancing between creating a magical experience and tighter and tighter budgets.
Tesco wanted to find a way to help customers get better value from their Christmas shopping by creating a free, festive experience that felt genuinely generous. It needed to feel inclusive, useful and valuable to customers, while also support overall Tesco’s overall business goals.
In short, it needed to make Christmas feel within reach – a sentiment that became the organising idea for the whole campaign.
While most other supermarkets fight for festive spend inside the store, Tesco had the opportunity to win the season before the shop even began. Tesco car parks are high-footfall, high-intent spaces that shoppers have to pass through, but they’re often just seen as transitional spaces. We wanted to turn this underused space into a connected part of the journey to store –one that could offer festive joy, inspire product discovery, and lift spirits before bringing customers into store.
Christmas shopping is in a world of its own. It’s functional of course – shoppers need to complete their lists while managing the cost – but it’s also deeply emotional. They want magic, a reminder that Christmas can still feel special; something that feels increasingly important with each passing year.
So, we wanted to make Tesco feel like the start of Christmas, not just the place to shop for it.
We transformed Tesco car parks into a Christmas Festival: warm, sensory, festive destinations that allowed shoppers to discover, sample and buy everything they needed for Christmas. There were two parts to the festival: the Grotto and the Market.
The Grotto was the campaign’s emotional core. Visiting Santa can be expensive, especially during a cost-conscious Christmas. So, Tesco brought Santa to the same place people are already shopping, offering a free and inclusive moment of festive magic. Families could share children’s names and preferences so Santa could personalise each visit and SEND-friendly slots made sure every child could experience the magic comfortably. Children left the grotto with a free photo, an age-appropriate gift, and plenty of festive memories. Santa even went on daily walks instore to make sure families who hadn’t been able to book a slot could meet him.
We treated the Grotto like a paid attraction. Snow-capped details, reindeer cues, festive interiors, letter-writing moments, elf interaction and the final Santa meeting created a believable world for children. Branding was kept light so the experience felt like a gift from Tesco rather than a sales message.
The Market, on the other hand, was designed for trial, discovery and inspiration at scale. Taking inspiration from traditional Christmas Markets, we made this a multi-sensory experience. Festive arches, wayfinding, wooden cabins, music, scents, food cues and gifting moments all worked together to create high impact seasonal theatre. There was plenty for shoppers to get involved with – supplier activations, demonstrations, workshops, competitions and gifting experiences all offered reasons to stay longer, explore further and try something new. And when they were finished, shoppers could immediately go on to buy the products they’d just enjoyed.
During the festive season, 422,500 customers across 166 stores visited the Christmas Festival and tried 2,147,500 samples – far exceeding Tesco’s engagement and trial objectives. Nearly two million of these were supplier samples, putting products into shoppers’ hands at the point where they could immediately go into store and buy them.
And customers loved it. The Grotto achieved 9.5/10 satisfaction and 9.3/10 for giving visitors a better opinion of Tesco. The overall experience achieved an NPS of 80, and 96.62% said their children enjoyed their time.
The campaign travelled further through social and digital amplification. We achieved 53.2m social reach and an88% positive sentiment from social posts. The conversation focused on the Christmas markets overall, festive treats, food hauls and goodie bags, demonstrating how product discovery became part of the wider Christmas story.
But the strongest measure of shopper connection was what happened commercially. For every £1 invested, the campaign generated £9.66 in incremental sales: a 9.66:1 ROI.
Tesco did not simply earn attention at Christmas. It turned a free family experience into discovery, trial, advocacy and measurable retail action.
Shoppers could feel Christmas, taste Christmasand experience Christmas before walking into Tesco to buy Christmas.
.png)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
