Boots aims to take the stress out of gifting in its holiday campaign

Integrated work by Ogilvy encourages customers to build their own 'bootique'

Published On
Nov 11, 2019

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U.K. retailer Boots has unveiled this year's holiday campaign, kicking off with a TV spot that centers, humorously, on the stress of gifting and building out an integrated campaign that aims to solve it with curated gift edits. 

The campaign, by Ogilvy London, starts with a 90 second film that opens in a village hall, where a woman giving a Christmas reading breaks off to discuss her husband's gift. Others relate to her frustrations as the audience chip in to discuss how stressful gifting can be. The film then moves through a series of scenes which bring to life some of the people we now have to buy for; like the person who gets up every Sunday at 6AM to be yelled at by a fitness instructor, or the woman who totally gets why a beauty influencer contours with a kitchen spatula. The spot was directed by Si & Ad, via Academy Films. 

The film promotes the wider campaign, in which Boots is launching hundreds of individual so-called "Bootiques" or gift edits curated around personalities and interests. Bootiques will appear online, in Boots stores, in out-of-home, social media and experiential channels.There will also be a "Build Your Own Bootique" online tool for people to share their passions with friends and family.

The film will air during prime-time on Saturday Nov. 9 across ITV, Channel 4, Sky, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.