M&S tasting kitchen

The What’s New at M&S campaign will run for 12 months across its social media channels. 

M&S is launching its first social media-only campaign to showcase its new products.

The upmarket retailer is launching a 12-month video campaign across its social media channels.

M&S has formed a celebrity panel to taste its new products, review them and choose a favourite in the unscripted monthly video series. It is made up of Amanda Holden, Paddy McGuinness, Emma Willis and Rochelle Humes. M&S said they were chosen as they all had families, which ties into its desire to attract young families to its food offer.

The What’s New at M&S campaign, which begins on 9 September on Instagram’s IGTV and YouTube, will start with a video of the panel tasting and choosing their favourite M&S Italian meal. Each video will be themed for the month it is published, with October bringing new prepared meals and desserts, and November and December focusing on Christmas lines.

The panel will also share the videos from their own social media accounts, including Twitter and Facebook, and M&S will post links to them across its own accounts.

The What’s New at M&S campaign will also be flagged up in M&S stores through point of sale highlighting the celebrity panel’s favourite new lines. It will encourage shoppers to share their favourite M&S products using the hashtag #mymarksfave. This follows the launch of the My M&S Favourite campaign in May, which sees Foodhall employees wear badges underneath their name badges showing their favourite M&S product, shelf-edge labels illustrating M&S employees’ product recommendations, and head office employees showcasing their favourite products in their email signatures.

Read more: Marks & Spencer introduces My M&S Favourite in-store campaign

If the campaign proves successful, it will continue into 2020.

“This is our way of showing our customers the new products we’re bringing out each month,” M&S marketing director, food and hospitality Sharry Cramond told The Grocer. “We launch over 1,000 new lines a year and have always been famous for innovation. Our customers are always sharing our food on social media, and while my team and I taste our new products each month, we knew we had to share that with our customers.”