OCADO ADS: WHY ARE THEY SO EFFECTIVE?

Who Made the Ocado Adverts?

Ocado awarded its ad account to agency St. Luke’s in August 2020, after a competitive pitch process that, according to Campaign, took place entirely remotely because of the pandemic. At the time, the account was understood to be worth £10 million and was awarded ahead of the online supermarket’s partnership with Marks & Spencer, which kickstarted in September of that year, replacing the long-standing partnership with Waitrose & Partners.

St. Luke’s, an independent creative agency, sought to inject humour into their Ocado campaigns to tell the brand story and to make it more relatable, and they’ve been delivering for them ever since.

There’s an Ocado Just for You

Ocado’s insanely catchy little jingle turns into a full singalong in this ad (they’ve even posted the lyrics for you), which was its biggest national advertising campaign. Starting with breakfast, the Ocado van morphs into a smaller bakery van, which opens up to reveal a huge trestle table laden with baskets of baked goods (‘Want focaccia coming ‘atcha, or just white sliced bread?’), before the van transforms into a purple, branded trawler down a seemingly flooded street ‘when your Friday needs the freshest twist’ to deliver your fish. Pasta, loads of fruit and veg on a tractor, ice-cream delivered directly to your second-floor window - yup, ‘there’s an Ocado just for you’ really nails the proposition that there’s masses of choice, all at your fingertips, personalized for you.

The campaign featured Ocado’s new rebranding and colour change from green to purple and an updated ‘swirl’ logo, along with a new custom typeface designed by F37 Foundry.

And as for that jaunty little ditty that you’ll find yourself humming all day, it features lyrics written by St. Luke’s creatives Alan Young and Matt Harvey, with the melody composed by Native. A great jingle has the advantage of taking the brand from TV to radio, digital and podcasts and Ocado’s jingle is definitely up there with other iconic bits of aural branding such as McDonald’s and Just Eat.

Bringing Great Value to the Table

Ocado ads have a way of being eyecatching and memorable without needing to be out there or extreme, as the ‘Bringing Great Value to the Table ad’ from January 2022 illustrates. The brand’s ‘quality products at affordable prices’ promise is demonstrated by a super-long table stacked with an abundance of groceries.

From the back of the Ocado van, the giant table rolls through a neighbourhood, interrupting a child’s birthday  party and bemusing a pet cat and even heads towards a flight of stairs. There’s just no stopping this array of food.

Summer’s Biggest Line-up

Taking this idea a step further is this joyful summer ad – voiced by none other than Sporty Spice Mel C. A little girl excitedly dashes outside as she sees the Ocado van coming up the street. It’s revealed to be a pretty awesome carnival-style float, packed with summertime goodies, from a seaside scene with sunscreen to a garden BBQ, chilled cans of Coke and a giant lolly which opens up to reveal So. Many. Ice-creams. The little girl nabs a pair of Jude’s Fruit Rockets ice-lollies and gives one to her next-door neighbour through the fence, to share the summer spirit.

Alan Young, CCO of creative agency St. Luke’s, revealed the thinking behind the ad: ‘Since relaunching the Ocado brand in 2021, we’ve transformed the iconic delivery van into all kinds of vehicles. For this campaign, we’ve given it a new spin – a parade of floats representing everything we love about summer.’

Food for Thought

Eleven animated films reminiscent of Aardman showed characters such as egg and cress, an apple and a pineapple and two loved-up berries discussing the amount of choice, the fact that Ocado delivers M&S and the platform’s flexibility, in November 1922. The playful, customer-centric campaign featured real-life shoppers transformed into fruit and veg; in Food for Thought, Sue & Simon from Nottingham became an apple and a pineapple chatting about the flexibility of Ocado’s delivery slots.

Dorothy and Ruth from Bath and Brighton discuss their mayo preferences (vital for the perfect egg and cress sarnie:)

Milton Keynes’ Masuma and Imtiaz are a loved-up raspberry and blackberry who agree that, ‘in terms of groceries, it’s the perfect marriage.’

Zoom

Want your groceries delivered in a flash? You need the Zoom by Ocado app - whether it’s for a ‘controversial pizza topping’ (pineapple), or a ‘cheese plate’s favourite prop’ (grapes), there are 10,000 items you can order. Will they all arrive wearing tiny bike helmets and goggles? Probably not, but this animation on a cheery yellow background makes the most of its simplicity to get the point across, whilst also raising a smile.

Ocado’s Magical Meal Bundles Inspired By Disney

How about a Disney-inspired dinner tonight?

For this campaign, Ocado designed three surveys for parents with children aged 5-13 for their ‘Once Upon a Mealtime’ meal bundles. Six bundles were themed around some of Disney’s biggest hits, including The Lion King, Frozen, Moana and Cars, and some Wild West Tacos, courtesy of Cowboy Woody from Toy Story.

The ad has a suitably magical feel, with the theme given a twinkly-sounding makeover and the step-by-step recipe cards and food items making their own way out of the van and into the kitchen. They help the family to get dinner on the table in scenes reminiscent of Mary Poppins, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. It’s mealtimes made fun!

Ocado Own Range

There’s more family fun and kitchen mayhem in this ad, which shows different generations making a cake and creating dinner for Veggie Mondays on a budget with Ocado’s Own range of basics, fruit and veg:

Or get some ‘frozen favourites at a cool price’ – useful when everyone’s dashing around, going to a different after-school club, but still needs to eat together:

MyOcado2021

Pre-Christmas 2021, Ocado sent 600,000 customers an early Christmas present, instead of running a more classic Christmas ad campaign, with a personalized video summarizing their year in shopping with the brand. (Basically Spotify Wrapped for groceries.) Sink Studios were behind the creative and campaign delivery, which transformed the idea of There’s an Ocado Just for You into There’s a Christmas Ad Just for You.

Each film was around two minutes, and summarized the customer’s year, their top purchases and how they’d helped contribute to Ocado’s sustainability mission (in 2021, Ocado had recycled over 100 million carrier bags through its closed loop recycling scheme, for example.)

The agency created a fictional ‘Good News’ channel, with an Ocado delivery driver playing the news anchor, delivering the good news. It’s a really charming way of spreading your message – largely because your own customers will love sharing it for you.

10,000 Price Promises

In Spring 2023, the brand teamed up with indie creative agency St Luke’s again to create their Ocado TV advert, focusing on the Ocado Price Promise. In her kitchen, a woman and her dog are surprised when the bread bin starts banging around, eventually revealing a bright red value sign bobbing around next to her seeded loaf. The rest of the cupboards, freezer and fridge get in on the action, pinging open to highlight more value signs, before thousands of them tumble out of a wall cupboard. The ad flags the fact that if their like-for-like shop on Ocado isn’t already cheaper than on Tesco.com, customers will be given a voucher for the difference.

Inspired Choices

Last summer, Ocado launched their ‘Inspired Choices’ campaign, highlighting the inspiration behind their customers’ shopping habits in a fun way. The ad was again developed by St Luke’s, showcasing a variety of scenes where Ocado customers add a produce from the online grocer’s range of 49,000 products.

A new dad pushing a buggy sees a man eating messily in a cafe, and is inspired to search for ‘baby bibs’, while a woman watching an adorable school play featuring the kids frolicking about dressed as lambs surreptitiously looks up ‘mint sauce’ on her phone. At the vet’s, a cat owner surrounded by panting dogs is prompted to look for mouthwash, whilst a woman on a duff date with a man banging on about how much he loves to travel scrolls through Ocado’s ‘waffle’ options. Plus there’s a very cheeky little search to finish…

Over 2,000 shoppers were quizzed on the strangest place they’d updated an online order (a FUNERAL??) to provide inspiration, and it's accompanied by a quirky piano and accordion version of the Ocado theme, underlining the relaxed, easy-going experience of putting together your order online and adding in those random extra items.

Made for Modern Living

Before teaming up with St. Luke’s, Ocado’s ads were created by agency Now Advertising. This cute animation shows how Ocado helps life feel effortless. The vans and food flow effortlessly towards a house where the family are spending time together, rather than having to trek round the supermarket, ‘because time is precious’.

This ad definitely zeroes in on how stressful supermarket shopping can be, with a frazzled mum eventually swapping squeaky trollies, kids running riot and getting boxed in whilst trying to get out of the car park, for sitting on the sofa with a cuppa and her tablet, ordering online instead.

There’s a Brand Ad Just for You

If you want to see how other brands are creating memorable campaigns, then check out our deep dives – we’ve got everything from Tesco to Just Eat and Coca-Cola, Dominos, Bud Light and Burger King and even the dark art of subliminal advertising.

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