Fleur East stars in Debenhams Christmas campaign

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 11, 2019

With Debenhams having received a cash injection from its backers to help it through the make-or-break festive season, the company is betting heavily on its ability to use the season to help drive its turnaround forwards.

And as much as, if not more than, many of its retail peers, it’s relying on its Christmas ad campaign to get shoppers though its doors and clicking on its website.

With that in mind, it has enlisted singer-songwriter Fleur East, best known for her appearances on The X Factor and I’m a Celebrity… Get me out of Here! 

The multimillion-pound marketing campaign features cameos from East as a fairy godmother who minimises gift-buying stress with a wave of her magic wand.

The campaign also uses her new single Size to give consumers easy and affordable gift ideas. In the campaign, the company is also pushing its alphabet shop, which sells a selection of products with letters on them, Debenhams saying this is very popular with its customers.

That’s all in the 30-second film with a shorter 20-second version focusing on a key Christmas product strand — its big selection of advent calendars and especially its beauty calendars.

The retailer’s creative director Mark Stevens said the company “has the licence to really push itself in terms of the fun factor,” and that with plenty of “fun” ideas in fashion and beauty on offer this year, the company wanted to make “celebratory ads [that] feel really relatable to our customers.”

It’s all about optimism and a positive attitude and is a continuation from last year’s feelgood-focused Do a bit of you know you did good campaign.

The company has also extended its three-for-two offers on gifts to make it an even more attractive destination this season.

The campaign is being seen on TV as well as outdoors, on social media, in digital and print and, of course, in its stores.

The Christmas campaign follows £3 million invested by the retailer in its AW19 marketing.