Asda: Launching the Gnome of Christmas

After a successful Christmas 2023 working with Asda, the faint sound of jingle bells began to fill our studios once again in July: it was time for STM Agency and Asda to collaborate for Christmas 2024. This time, we were tasked with working from a campaign brief set by Asda’s tier one agency, based around establishing Asda as the Gnome of Christmas. 

With the hero Christmas TV ad in motion, featuring a series of cheeky gnome characters acting as the saviours of Christmas, our team was responsible for the paid social production and photography elements of this year’s seasonal response. Across all elements of our creative, our challenge was to put Asda and its range of affordable (and indulgent) products at the centre of the Christmas magic, all wrapped up in four key missions: Decorating, Gifting, Celebrating and Socialising, and The Big Day.

With so many elements to bring together across our paid social and photography responses, collaboration was key from day one. We carefully selected a team of around 20 specialists across STM CREATE, Client Services and Eat & Breathe, drawing on their individual talents throughout the creative response, pre-production, shoot production and post-production phases. And during every phase, we kept in close contact with the team from Asda’s tier one agency and key Asda stakeholders. 
 
Leaving gnome stone unturned 
 
Every Christmas enthusiast knows a successful season comes down to the planning – that’s why the creative response and pre-production phases were such key elements of our overall process. In preparation for both our social and photography outputs, we meticulously planned every shot, angle, crop and prop across several locations, undertaking test shoots and keeping the distinct platform requirements at the forefront. For paid social, our platforms included Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat, while our photography brief catered to print, OOH, online, in-store point of sale, and car park banners – so these unique specifications had to be considered within every aspect of our Christmas styling.  
 
Team Christmas, assemble! 
 
Blazing August heat didn’t stop our team from finding their Christmas spirit. First up was our photography response, in which we transformed our Leeds Eat & Breathe studios into a festive world of mince pies, stocking-fillers and garlands galore, shooting over a 4-week period across 2 photography rigs. Our task was to bring differentiation across Asda’s mid-tier portfolio and their new, premium Exceptional product range, working with creative crops and heroic angles to capture those extra special touches – as well as welcoming a gnome or two with the help of CGI.  
 
On the social side, our response was also two-fold, with distinct approaches for online and Christmas Missions that covered a location shoot, three room sets, a porch and front garden – each beautifully decorated to bring the warmth of a cosy family Christmas. For us, it was all about telling real life stories – the Asda delivery driver delivering the all-important turkey order… the tables loaded up with party food spreads… the pinching of the final pig in blanket on the big day… and within these stories, we found playful ways to introduce our gnome characters, while always keeping quality and value at the fore. 

The results of both our photography and paid social responses proved that real Christmas magic that can happen when we work together. Following an extensive period of retouching, colour grading and editing, in which every crumb, slice and ooze was carefully considered, we proudly presented a total of over 175 social assets and 140 images, which will feature across a whole host of platforms in the lead up to the big day. The team at Asda was delighted with our work, and we’re already looking forward to donning our party hats and Christmas jumpers once again next summer.