Asda has launched a gnome-themed festive ad in which a team of garden ornaments vie to save Christmas.
The ad opens with two Asda workers, Maggie and Bill, staring out of a store into a huge snowstorm. Maggie, visibly concerned, says: “Every road is closed between here and Sheffield, how are we going to get the store ready for Christmas?”
Bill picks up a gnome and presses its nose – it lights up green, sending a signal to hundreds of gnomes across gardens, pub shelves and tower blocks nationwide, who answer the call for help.
Set to the theme of The A Team, the gnome commandos – Max, Gnibbles, Gnorma, Gnicky and Gnarla – arrive at the Asda store and get to work transforming it into a Christmas wonderland.
The gnomes showcase a variety of Asda’s festive offer, including its ‘Exceptional’ mince pies, a George ombre sequin dress, penguin bao buns and a gingerbread gnome.
With the sun coming up, chief Gnome, Max, announces, “It’s time to go Gnome”, and the ceramic heroes set off in Asda delivery vans, leaving a the store ready for Christmas.
The film ends with Chris Rea’s Christmas classic, with the lyrics adapted to ‘Driving Gnome for Christmas’.
Related Story
Gnomes have long been popular in Asda stores with characters ranging from the Mini Unicorn, to bride and groom gnomes, to a dancing Santa. The retailer has sold over 100,000 festive gnomes over the last four Christmas periods, and has a dedicated buyer tasked with gnome handling.
It will sell five of the hero gnomes at stores across the country from Thursday (7 November).
Asda 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.
“Our priority is to make sure our customers can have their best Christmas possible with great quality food, general merchandise and amazing George clothing and home items all under one roof.”
The ad premiered on the supermarket’s social media on Saturday (2 November) and will air on TV for the first time on Wednesday 6 November at 8.15pm, during the Coronation Street ad break.
It follows Sainsbury’s launch of its BFG-themed Christmas ad on Friday.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
