Over the past two decades, effective advertising has become more crucial than ever to retailers. Nick Hughes looks at some of the most iconic campaigns from the past 25 years.

Asda pocket tap

Often it’s not only what retailers sell that matters but how it’s sold. In a crowded market where the physical attributes of products may vary only a little between retailers, the difference between a sale gained or lost is in the perception of value created by marketing.

A great marketing campaign can turn something mundane into something extraordinary; something functional into something aspirational; something mainstream into something premium.

The best retail marketers produce consistently slick campaigns and generate column inches, but more than that they create long-term brand equity and, in rare cases, change the rules of the game.

Here is our pick of some of the best campaigns from the past 25 years.

Asda: Pocket tap

Asda pocket tap

The ultimate validation of a campaign’s effectiveness is when the public takes ownership of a slogan, jingle or action. In the UK, and particularly in Yorkshire, two taps on the back pocket has become shorthand for getting a good deal thanks to the ‘Asda Price’ campaign that has run on and off for 35 years.

The pocket tap and accompanying jingle of coins is a simple, but highly effective symbol of Asda’s everyday low-price positioning.

Numerous celebrities have been tappers over the years including Julie Walters and footballer Michael Owen.

But arguably it was the denim-clad Asda mum tapping her back pocket to show off the pennies saved by shopping at the retailer that its core consumer identified most closely with.

The pocket tap has been dropped on more than one occasion but each time has been resurrected, most recently in 2009, proving the enduring appeal and effectiveness of this most straightforward of ideas.

Tesco: Every Little Helps

Tesco

‘Every Little Helps’ wasn’t so much a catchy strapline but a description of the approach that over the course of a decade helped Tesco overtake Sainsbury’s as the leading UK supermarket and establish a position so dominant that no rival has come close to toppling it since.

Those three simple words encapsulated everything the retailer was trying to do in the 1990s. They embraced a range of initiatives aimed at making the shopping experience more pleasurable, from custom-made trolleys and baby changing facilities to Tesco’s ‘one in front’ policy, where it would open a new checkout every time a queue of more than one customer built up. Most significant was the launch of Clubcard in 1995 - the ultimate embodiment of the Every Little Helps philosophy with its one point for every £1 spent reward scheme.

The character Dotty - a matriarch brilliantly portrayed by Prunella Scales who put Tesco’s promises to the test and found them coming up trumps every time - proved to be an inspired creation that completed Tesco’s transformation from a ‘pile it high sell it cheap’ supermarket to a retailer that dominated the market like a colossus. Not bad for a three-word slogan.

Body Shop: ethical values

Bodyshop

Any modern retailer that plays on its corporate social responsibility credentials probably owes a debt of gratitude to Dame Anita Roddick. Decades before having a conscience became cool, the Body Shop was highlighting ethical and envir­onmental values in hard-hitting campaigns primarily publicised in store and by word-of-mouth.

Its first campaign, in 1986, was a call to Save the Whale in collaboration with Greenpeace in which the Body Shop called for an end to whaling and promoted jojoba oil as the perfect alternative to sperm whale oil in cosmetics. In 1989 it launched its first environmental campaign against the burning of Brazilian rainforests, and gathered a million petition signatures to present to the president of Brazil.

Such campaigns could have been dismissed as hippie posturing with no commercial value were it not for the fact the Body Shop delivered substantial growth in sales and profits during the 1980s and 1990s.

Despite numerous attempts to attack its ethical and environmental claims, as the first retailer to wear its green values on its sleeve the Body Shop was a marketing pioneer.

Sainsbury’s: Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver for Sainsburys

Using celebrities to sell products has long been a tried and tested retail formula, but historically celebrities did little more than put their name to a brand and appear in an ad or two before walking away with a fat cheque. Sainsbury’s moved the goalposts in 2000 when it recruited Jamie Oliver to front its TV ads.

Oliver represented a new breed of celebrity chef - a cheeky, charming yet image-conscious entrepreneur who appealed to a broad and, most importantly, young audience. Over the next decade, Sainsbury’s cleverly set about aligning brand Oliver with brand Sainsbury’s.

In 2005 JS introduced its ‘Try Something New Today’ positioning that chimed perfectly with Oliver’s crusade to get people cooking healthier foods from scratch. As the relationship blossomed, by working with Sainsbury’s to develop and promote products and front campaigns - such as 2011’s ‘Switch the Fish’ - that aligned with his personal values, Oliver brought credibility to the supermarket’s own ‘quality with a conscience’ agenda.

French Connection: FCUK

FCUK

It’s doubtful whether a retail campaign has ever created such a storm as French Connection’s adoption of FCUK. Launched in 1997 with the ‘fcuk fashion’ strapline, the campaign was conceived by legendary ad man Trevor Beattie who noticed that French Connection used the acronym FCUK on internal memos.

It went on to become one of the most successful - and controversial - campaigns in retail history.

The mischievous use of FCUK suggested a brand with an anarchic attitude while cleverly leaving interpretation up to the individual.

It was used in TV and press ads, in-store and, most controversially, on merchandise, resulting in run-ins with the Advertising Standards Authority. Indeed, for a four-year period in the 2000s the ASA pre-vetted all FCUK print ads - initially as a result of an ad containing the slogan “fcukinkybugger”.

One thing it most certainly succeeded in doing was generating column inches. While it may be best remembered for having been risqué and subversive, it also created a strong identity for the brand that probably persists to this day.

M&S: This is not just food…

Marks and Spencer

When is a chocolate pudding not just a chocolate pudding? When it’s filmed in slow motion with chocolate oozing from the centre, accompanied by husky-voiced Dervla Kirwan eulogizing about its intense flavour, with the pay-off: ‘This is not just food, this is M&S food.’

Beyond the food-porn aspect, the genius of the M&S campaign was to make everyday foods appear luxurious. It convinced middle-class consumers that dining in didn’t have to mean cooking for yourself, and transformed the high-margin ready meal from a convenient solution for time-poor office workers to an aspirational meal for couples.