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John Lewis Sainsbury's Tesco

John Lewis’ Bear and Hare most talked about advert on social, but Sainsbury's most emotionally engaging

By Annabelle Collins

December 16, 2013 | 2 min read

The John Lewis Christmas advert was found to be the most discussed socially for 2013, although its rival Sainsbury's had to most emotionally engaging Christmas advert, according to research by We Are Social.

The London-based social media agency found that the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert had the most emotional impact of tweeters with 21 per cent mentioning crying in their tweet. Sainsbury’s social community has increased after this ad aired, seeing 43,257 new fans on Facebook and 16,140 new followers on Twitter.

Tesco’s Christmas advert was found to have the broadest appeal. 52 per cent of people talking about it were male in comparison to slightly less females at 48 per cent. Tesco’s approach is unusual as all the other adverts were weighted towards female conversation. It was found that three quarters of people who talked about the Sainsbury’s ad were women.

Marks and Spencer’s interactive aspect to their Christmas ad, where they asked fans to name the dog, earned them 264,279 new fans on Facebook, and 18,677 new followers on Twitter.

However, it is probably no surprise that this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert ‘The Bear and the Hare’ was by far the most talked about Christmas ad. It had 212,000 mentions on Twitter, compared with 38,000 for Sainsbury’s ‘Christmas in a day’ and 37,000 for Marks & Spencer’s ‘Magic and Sparkle’.Ed Kitchingman, senior analyst at We Are Social, said: “John Lewis has once again rolled out its simple formula of gift giving. This year’s concept that tapped into the popular conscious of the nation, with the hare and bear friendship generating an overwhelming positive response from Twitter users.”The 2012 advert ‘The Journey’, which also featured the gift giving formula, had over four million views on YouTube and propelled its Gabrielle Aplin soundtrack to number one in the UK Charts.According to research undertaken by Realeyes, the emotional engagement of the 2011 advert 'The Long Wait' was superior to that of 'The Hare and the Bear'.

John Lewis Sainsbury's Tesco

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