Asda is the first supermarket to unveil its Christmas 2025 campaign, with a Dr Seuss-inspired Christmas advert.
Unusually for a festive campaign, it sticks closely to chairman Allan Leighton’s “Asda price” strategy throughout the rest of the year, as the supermarket hopes to appeal to concious shoppers feeling the squeeze of the cost of living crisis in its bid to rebuild market share throughout the golden quarter.
Set to the tune of Let it Snow, it features an “Asda Green” Grinch bemoaning the “frightful prices” and his lack of “dough” as he wanders a Christmas market with his family.
However, his gloom is soon converted by the “Asda Prices” on display at his local store. “Wait, am I enjoying shopping?” he asks.
The 90-second advert – which was created by Lucky Generals and directed by Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher – will first air at 8pm on ITV1 on 1 November.
It will be accompanied by a full suite campaign across Asda’s PR and social media channels, in-store radio, Asda magazine and in-store displays, throughout November and December, ramping up to the big day.
Asda had deliberately chosen not to shy away from talking about the cost of living crisis and food inflation squeezing many of its shoppers, it said.
“Unlike a lot of brands what we didn’t want to do was to take a holiday from our strategy at Christmas. We wanted to continue the message,” Adam Zavalis, Asda VP for marketing, told The Grocer.
Christmas ad ban had caused confusion
Notably, while it does feature a range of Asda’s 500 new Christmas products, including turkey, chicken sticky skewers, frozen party food and sweetcorn fritters, Asda has largely avoided focusing too closely on the food, instead choosing to highlight Asda’s Rollback campaign and Asda Price credentials.
It was a deliberate move partly influenced by the “confusion” over the prospect of the ban on HFSS advertising that overshadowed retailers Christmas preparation, Zavalis said.
“Part of the process was very much looking at which products can we feature, those we can’t and what that’s going to alter,” he said.
Under new restrictions, TV ads must not show products high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) before the 9pm watershed. The restrictions were due to be mandated from 1 October but instead have been adopted under a voluntary industry agreement from the same date, after government delayed implementation of the legislated ban to next year.
“What you’ll see as retailers deploy their campaigns is clearly there will be some individual products and price messaging that you might see in a press ad or a piece of digital communication that may have to be different. Certain products won’t be able to be featured, so that will change.
“We’ve had to really think about what we are communicating, in which channel, where and how,” Zavalis added.
The Grinch ‘perfect’ character to tell Asda story
Loz Horner, strategy partner at Lucky Generals, rejected any idea that the Grinch could be an unimaginative or obvious choice for a Christmas protagonist. The agency’s polling of Asda customers showed Dr Seuss’s character remained a “perennial favourite” with families.
“The Grinch is a really clever way of acknowledging another truth, which is in every family there’s normally one person who is a bit grinchy about the cost of Christmas, or who might be the person who feels everything’s gone a bit out of control.”
Not only is the Grinch naturally “Asda green”, George is one of the UK’s biggest sellers of Grinch merchandise and “has been for years”. 2025 also marked 25 years since the release of the Jim Carrey film How The Grinch Stole Christmas, he pointed out.
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