Dixons aims Star Wars ad at John Lewis threat

By Matthew Chapman, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Tuesday, 01 November 2011 08:30AM

Dixons Retail is launching a multimillion-pound campaign featuring Star Wars character Darth Vader in an attempt to change perceptions of its customer service.

Dixons: New Star Wars ads for Christmas push

The activity will push the message that Dixons Retail, which owns Currys and PC World, trains its 14,000 staff to ‘deliver great service’.

It has increased its market share at the expense of Comet, but faces a growing threat from John Lewis, which has invested heavily in ads highlighting its consumer electronics offering.

Dixons Retail head of brand communications Benjamin Kaye said the company is concerned by John Lewis because ‘its sales are growing and it’s a great brand’.

A 40-second TV spot shows Darth Vader checking whether Currys and PC World staff meet his high standards, in a parody of the well-known scene in Return of the Jedi where Vader inspects the Death Star.

The M&C Saatchi-created ads will break during The X Factor this Saturday (5 November) and run for three weeks.

These will be supported by online ads and social-media activity. Spots featuring the Chewbacca and R2-D2 characters will run on video-on-demand channels. 

Dixons Retail struck an exclusive deal with rights-owner Lucasfilm last year to run Star Wars-themed advertising, ahead of a campaign pushing its ‘megastores’.

The retailer’s core tenets are ‘value, range and service’ and it recently changed the way it rewards staff in an effort to improve service.

Staff receive bonuses only if their branch customer-satisfaction scores, calculated through exit surveys and mystery-shopper visits, reach a certain standard.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk