Lulu ads draw 4m customers to Morrisons

LONDON - Morrisons' Christmas advertising campaign, featuring 60s pop star Lulu and cameos from actress Denise van Outen and former football international Alan Hanson, has paid off as the supermarket has reported its strongest sales growth for four years.

Marc Bolland, chief executive of Morrisons, yesterday announced a 9.5% leap in underlying sales in the six weeks to January 6, beating rivals such as Tesco and Sainsbury's.

He said that the ads had helped to bring in 4m new customers into its 375 stores in the run-up to Christmas.

The ads also helped Morrisons to attract customers from the south of England where it had previously struggled to compete against Sainsbury's and Tesco.

The DLKW-created ads showed Lulu pushing a Morrisons trolley through the snow-covered town of Tunbridge Wells in search of food. It features cameo appearances by the stars of previous ads, including Denise van Outen, Nick Hancock, Gabby Logan and Alan Hansen.

A scheme to give 10% discounts to staff and their families was also said to have boosted sales by 1.5%.

Bolland spent 50% of the supermarket's annual marketing budget in the last quarter and £11m to £15m on the Christmas campaign.

Morrisons signed Van Outen in July to front a campaign introducing its new slogan 'Fresh choice for you', as well as a revamped logo.

Morrisons also attributes the success to its improved range of products, to which 4,000 organic, healthy and top-end products have been added over the past six months.

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