Clogau wanted a Christmas campaign that would, quite simply, drive sales.

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The Christmas campaign that reminded us that Clogau means more, capping a year of advertising success that drove Clogau’s revenues up 400%

In 1989, the Clogau St. David’s gold mine was discovered by William Roberts. It produced a precious rose-coloured gold, one of the rarest golds in the world – and so Clogau Jewellery was born.

Clogau briefed Team S3 to devise and produce a compelling, engaging and effective integrated Christmas campaign to broaden the brand’s appeal and drive sales over the peak festive period.

Clogau’s natural strength is its intrinsic depth of sentiment.

Clogau has a long legacy of crafting jewellery to carry meaning, using Welsh gold in every piece and designing collections inspired by the natural beauty and history of the surrounding landscape.

The natural strength of the brand is this intrinsic depth of sentiment. For wearers of Clogau jewellery, this means that wherever they go and whatever they’re doing, they’ll always have a reminder of what really matters, close to hand. We translated this into a Brand Idea for Clogau ‘When you’ve lost your way in the world, Clogau navigate you back to what really matters’. This idea would become the backbone of Clogau’s long-term brand strategy and its Clogau Christmas ad campaign.

The Skills

Our plan for Christmas was to communicate the idea that Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect – rather it’s who you share it with that really matters.

Our ad follows a family (with Dad played by Welsh TV star, Gethin Jones) carefully crafting their perfect Christmas tree for the festive season, but nothing quite goes to plan and, as we finish on a scene of our family smiling and laughing together, staring at their beloved and dishevelled tree – we realise it’s the family’s togetherness that really matters.

Throughout the ad, we hero the jewellery worn by our family. Detailed director’s treatments, storyboarding and pre-production all ensured that nothing was left to chance and post-production editing and VFX also ensured that the final product came together exactly as intended.

Our Clogau Christmas ad campaign launched on ITV and aired on the opening night of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here – which this year is set in North Wales, just a few miles away from where the TV advert itself was shot. Additional activity across out-of-home, social and PR helped cement the campaign idea and translate the TV creative into moments for purchase.

The Success

A campaign that built a brand by telling a story – creating a tangible, long-term effect on sales.

This campaign is a testament to the power of classic human advertising and long-term brand building. Viewers now associate Clogau and its jewellery with the sentiment they felt watching the ad; the brand means more to them, making them more likely to buy from Clogau over Christmas and beyond.

The ad campaign was part of S3 and Clogau’s long-term ‘Clogau Means More’ marketing strategy. Over a short 8 months this strategy transformed Clogau’s new customer acquisition and sales, helping it find its reason for being and bite big against the jewellery market’s dominant fashion-led brands.