11 Dec Essex businesses enter Visa’s #WhereYouShopMatters competition with festive video
Visa’s 2019 Christmas campaign featuring real independent shopkeepers is encouraging the nation to visit their high streets and shop locally this Christmas.
Visa’s Christmas campaign is supporting the UK’s independent retailers for a second year. In a rallying cry to UK shoppers, the campaign is encouraging people to switch their focus from what they are buying to where they are buying, urging shoppers to show their local high streets some love this Christmas and beyond.
The TV advert features 13 real shopkeepers – including a bookseller, greengrocer, antique dealer and café owner – singing Queen’s Somebody to Love. The campaign will put the spotlight on over 150 independent retailers nationwide, including featuring them in personalised adverts on prime city-centre billboards as well as geo-targeted ads on social media.
The campaign also featured a nationwide competition which invited shopkeepers to warm up their vocal chords and recreate Visa’s Christmas advert to show why ‘Where You Shop Matters’. The winning retailer will see their advert air during a prime-time advertising slot in the run-up to Christmas for millions to see. The competition has now closed after amassing 47 fantastic entries from independent businesses across the UK, including Essex.
Research commissioned by Visa* found that seven out of ten consumers (73%) say that shopping locally makes them feel happy, with two fifths (42%) citing supporting local shops and knowing where their money is going as the main reason.
Spending time with friends and family (22%) and offering a sense of community (21%) were other reasons cited for why high streets make people happier. The research also reveals that half of consumers (50%) feel that their high street gives them a sense of pride in their local community. Independent retailers echo this positive sentiment with almost three quarters (73%) optimistic about the future of their high street, up from 52% in 2018.
Directed by Gary Freedman the festive and heart-warming advert invites the nation to support their high streets and independent retailers this Christmas.
