Christmas is now just a few weeks away and the festive ads are starting to make an appearance.
Asda’s 2024 offering will air on television for the first time on 6 November, when it will be on ITV in the Coronation Street ad break. However, fans have already had a peek on social media.
The ad sees a team of gnomes ‘saving’ Christmas at the supermarket and has had the seal of approval from fans, who have labelled it “good old-fashioned fun”. “Love it, love it, love it,” exclaimed one, after viewing it on YouTube.
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So what is this year’s Asda advert all about, and how did bosses come up with the idea? Here is everything you need to know.
What is the advert about?
The animated adventure sees two Asda workers – Maggie and Bill - lamenting the snowstorm as they worry about how to get the store ready for the festive season. “Every road is closed between here and Sheffield, how are we going to get the store ready for Christmas?” asks a worried Maggie.
Luckily, the garden gnomes are on standby and they are on a mission to save Christmas. Leaping into action with the message “go big or go gnome”, they bake mince pies, wheel sparkly dresses into place, put up a giant Christmas tree and transform the store into a winter wonderland in the nick of time.
It's set to the theme of 80s TV hit The A-Team as the gnomes race around. When they are done they hop into Asda delivery vans and head off and the song switches to Chris Rea’s Christmas classic, with the lyrics adapted to Driving Gnome For Christmas.
Who are the characters and why gnomes?
Hundreds of homes feature in the advert but its stars are gnomes such as Max, Gnibbles, Gnorma, Gnicky and Gnarla, who customers will be able to buy.
Asda’s gnomes have long been popular in stores, with characters ranging from the mini unicorn, bride and groom gnomes and the dancing Santa. They sell like hotcakes at Christmas, and Asda even has a dedicated buyer tasked with gnome handling.
Asda's chief customer officer David Hills said: “Asda’s gnomes are long standing favourites with our customers and they were staring us in the face as the obvious characters for our Christmas campaign - a very Asda way for us to showcase our breadth of offer."
How was the ad created?
Creating the Yuletide advert was no mean feat, and work on the festive adventure has been under way for the last seven months.
The finished product is under two minutes long, but it was actually built from more than 3,000 hours of animated footage.
What have customers said?
The advert has had the thumbs up from customers, with people utterly charmed by the adventure after viewing it on social media. "Gosh... I love it, makes everything sound fun and gnomely, just like Christmas should be," said one person on YouTube. Another wrote: "A Christmas advert which I'm watching with a big smile on my face. Brilliant."
"What a brilliant advert shows what Christmas should be about!!" said someone else. Another person remarked: "Good old fashioned fun, just like back in the day and how it should be."
Asda's Christmas ad will be on TV for the first time on Wednesday 6 November on ITV at 8.15pm.
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