Kevin the Carrot is making Christmas again amazing for Aldi

Jamie Peate

Global Head of Retail Strategy / Head of Effectiveness — McCann Worldgroup UK

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Give us an overview of the campaign. What is it about and what was your role in the creation?

It is a fully integrated campaign for Aldi’s 2019 Christmas offering (a key trading period for them). I am the executive strategy lead for this and all of Aldi’s work.

How this holiday communication is different from the usual for this advertiser?

Throughout the year Aldi has three key pillars to its communication – price (Aldi’s price advantage), quality and range. At Christmas Aldi really have to turn the dial on quality and range, to reassure existing shoppers that Aldi has all the produce and products they need for an amazing Christmas.

Kevin has become a regular character of Aldi Christmas campaigns and has shown very effective results over the latest years? Can you tell us a bit more?

2019 is the fourth outing for Kevin, and he gets more effective every year. Christmas is very much a time for fame, feeling and fluency in communications and Kevin delivers on all three. He is highly recognised and anticipated due to the memory structures that have been built up in the minds of shoppers, he generates strong positive emotions and is also very entertaining. In our Omni-channel world he is a fluent device that can be used across all touchpoints.

What’s a “behind the scenes” story that only you know about?

Will ‘Pascal the Parsnip – the root of all evil’ - ever appear again? He was central to 2018’s campaign so who knows?

Are there any holiday ad tropes that you think should be retired by now?

Every year there are ad tropes around the ‘reality’ of Christmas – shopping, the stress of making everything perfect, putting up with challenging family and friends etc. – all of these need to be handled with extreme care. They can be great sources of human truth and humour, but they also can be all too real reminders of a Christmas reality we would rather not think about.

What is your favourite holiday campaign of all time?

Well, of course all of the Kevin campaigns for Aldi ;-) but if I had to choose someone else’s I think ‘The Long Wait’ from John Lewis takes some beating . It was born of beautifully simple truths that it is better to give than receive, and that when you are a kid Christmas seems to take forever to come. It is a masterclass in the craft of advertising; from the casting, to the music, to even the choice of house and swing in the garden.

What can we expect for Kevin for 2020?

I’m claiming the right to remain silent on that one :)