While recycling festive spots is the order of the day for rival retailers Asda has turned to a fresh team of garden Gnomes to reinvigorate Christmas.

The festive spot sees the supermarket enlist the help of a team of gnomes to help get everything ready for the big day.

The campaign, created with the help of Havas London, takes inspiration from the A-Team and is set to premiere during ITV’s Coronation Street on the 6th November. The spot capitalises on the excitement and pressure of getting everything ready for Christmas; the sort of prep that requires a team of specialist experts.

The film opens with two store employees, Maggie and Bill, concerned about how they will get things ready for the big day in the midst of a snowstorm. While Maggie is worried about how to get the store ready, Bill calls for back-up. He picks up a gnome, presses its nose and sends a signal to hundreds of gnomes from across gardens, homes and pubs to come to the store and answer the cry for help.

The team of gnomes descend on the Asda store and immediately get to work transforming the isles into a Christmas wonderland. Each gnome is filled with its own unique personality as they help to stock the shelves with food, prepare gifts on the shelves and set up a huge Christmas tree to create the ultimate festive store. As the sun rises, the chief gnome announces ‘It’s time to go gnome’ and the squad depart in Asda delivery vans.

The fun-filled spot is set to Chris Rea’s Christmas classic with lyrics adapted to become ‘Driving Gnome for Christmas’.  The film was directed by ‘King of the Super Bowl’ Bryan Buckley and produced by Hungry Man, with the 3D design of the gnomes created by Emmy-winning character experts Legacy Effects. The animation and post-production handled by the multi award-winning Rascal Studios.

Amongst the stars of the show, five hero ‘gnomies’ take on lead roles in the campaign and will be championed across key assets and in store. These gnomes are made up of charmingly reckless adventurer Max, fabulous drag artist and fashionista Gnicky, gourmet chef Gnibbles, cool as a cucumber surfer Gnarla, and the perfectionist party-planner Gnorma. Asda has created the five character gnomes in real life, and they will join Asda’s iconic ‘Mrs Claus’ gnome on shelves from 7^th November for customers to buy.

Asda’s gnomes have long been popular in stores with characters ranging from the Mini Unicorn, bride and groom gnomes, to a dancing Santa. Asda has sold over 100,000 festive gnomes over the last four Christmas periods and has a dedicated buyer tasked with gnome handling.

“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,” explains David Hills, Chief Customer Officer at Asda.

Vicki Maguire, Chief Creative Officer at Havas London, added: “Asda’s gnomes are not just iconic, they’re much loved by all – taking pride of place in people’s homes and gardens up and down the country. Bringing them to life this Christmas continues Asda’s focus on humorous, warm brand campaigns that tap into what customers really care for and love about Asda and its offer.”

Alongside the hero film, the campaign runs across Asda’s owned channels, OOH, press, online, PR and social. Born Social launched the spot on their own channels with an accidental ‘leak’ from the heroe gnomes who couldn’t hold back the Christmas spirit.

Asda’s PR team, working with agency Cow, have breadcrumbed gnome hints through events and stories in 2024, with them even appearing on huge OOH sites during key sporting events throughout the year.

Building on the existing popularity of Asda’s gnomes the campaign brings life to the characters. The spot confirms that the prep for Christmas 2024 is well and truly on.