Tesco wins battle for most engaging Christmas press ads

In a result that may surprise some, eye-tracking specialist Lumen Research claims that Tesco outperformed its competitors at engaging shoppers over Christmas in the national press.

Using eye tracking technology, Lumen has measured ‘eyes on’ dwell time with press advertising and found the UK’s biggest retailer came out top.

Despite various headlines in the press showing their meteoritic rise, the German discounters Lidl and Aldi came bottom of the league of effectiveness suggesting there is life yet in Britain’s beleaguered grocery giant.

Eye-catching creative

The Tesco ads Lumen tested performed best against norms with greater competition for attention meaning most brands struggled. However, Tesco consistently saw a strong performance, with Lidl ranking bottom of the league.

Tesco’s success came from keeping things simple, Lumen claims. “To-the-point headlines eased engagement for busy, media saturated shoppers, with product assortment focused on categories of broad appeal,” the company told Newsline.

Lidl’s poor performance was unexpected, as Lumen has seen Lidl’s social media style ads perform strongly recently, but over Christmas it appears trade-driving tactical ads trump brand messages.

Attention efficient media

Combining Lumen’s norms with Ebiquity’s audit data also reveals the efficiency of each retailer’s media buy. Morrisons and Lidl continued their usual strong performance, but Aldi suffered from employing expensive full-page (DPS) ads, pushing them to the bottom of the league.

Lumen estimates that Tesco’s combination of eye-catching creative and “efficient media” could have been worth £1.4m in media value in just a single month.