Specsavers wins advertising award for third time
The highly-acclaimed ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ marketing campaign, conceived in Guernsey, has won the Oracle Retail Week Awards Advertising Campaign of the Year for an unprecedented third time.
The renowned witty catchphrase beat off competition from Boots, Curry’s, Dixons and Wicks at last night’s (Thursday 4 March) annual awards event at London’s Grosvenor Hotel.
Specsavers marketing director Richard Holmes, who admits to having been extremely apprehensive before the results were read out, said: ‘This is excellent and a remarkable success story to come out of a little island, as the campaign was entirely conceived and generated by Guernsey people.
‘We pride ourselves on it being a truly integrated campaign, encompassing all disciplines.’
Specsavers creative director Graham Daldry added: ‘On a scale on one to ten I am on ten. It was a big team effort involving a brilliant world class team. To come out on top against such big brands is very pleasing.’
He says that the campaign’s production value had been raised significantly since the last award win.
‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ has, over the years, manifested itself into a number of witty scenarios, most recently reviving the Thunderbirds and Postman Pat characters. The initial message was that people should always go to Specsavers for eye tests. It became a vernacular expression for suggesting someone should get their eyes tested and made the Specsavers name inseparable from eye sight.’
While initially conceived to promote Specsavers as number one for eye examinations, the longstanding slogan has now become equally synonymous with value.
A spokesman from the judging panel said: ‘Specsavers, whose memorable tagline has become part of our language, has moved this longstanding campaign on in order to emphasise value during challenging economic conditions. The judges were impressed by the campaign’s high production value and completely single-minded approach that has given the brand ownership of the opticians’ market.’
A fellow judge adds: ‘It works spectacularly well. The campaign takes on radio and online as well as television to ensure the key audiences are reached, generating a clear sales uplift and attracting new customers.’
Specsavers has also just won a Mouse Award for the best online ad when Postman Pat took over the MSN portal for the day. The Mouse awards are created by Microsoft to champion creativity and celebrate innovation in digital marketing, with creative and media agencies from across Europe invited to submit their most innovative and imaginative campaign work from the past 12 months. Judges said that the Specsavers campaign, led by staff in Guernsey, was innovative and demonstrated great use of advertising capabilities offered on the MSN Homepage.
Continuing with its success, the Postman Pat television advert is also up for an award next week at the British Television Advertising Awards.
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