Richard Hammond and Des O'Connor are going head-to-head as the Christmas TV faces of two of the UK's biggest supermarkets, and O'Connor's Tesco is now trailing way behind Hammond's Morrisons. Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, yesterday revealed its worst sales figures for 14 years. Like-for-like sales - which exclude gains from new stores - were ahead just 2% in the last three months, or half the growth achieved in the previous quarter.
Bradford-based Morrisons is - so far - storming through the recession. Tomorrow it is expected to reveal recent sales up around 7.5% on last year - maintaining much the same impressive rate of growth as it reported three months ago.
Tesco's performance is also markedly worse than its rivals Sainsbury and Asda. Sainsbury - which has hired "I'm a Celebrity ..." hosts Ant and Dec to star in its adverts alongside its usual frontman Jamie Oliver - last month revealed like-for-like sales up 3.9%. Meanwhile Asda, which is filming traditional family Christmas ads in the Yorkshire Dales, grew 6.9% in the three months to the end of September.
Up until a couple of years ago, Morrisons was virtually unheard of in the south-east. Now they are pulling in thousands of new customers per week. This success is no doubt due to the marketing initiatives instigated by chief executive Marc Bolland.
The stores were given a new look and out went the outmoded "More reasons to shop at Morrisons" adverts. In their place Bolland brought in a raft of celebrities - Denise van Outen, Lulu, Alan Hansen, Nick Hancock and, more recently, Richard Hammond.
One retail executive said: "It was an old-fashioned grocer competing with the slicker marketing of rivals. The new Bolland empire has given the brand a slick new look and feel. He has taken the brand and the business and given it a polish".
So is Tesco in danger of losing their hold on the market? They say a resounding NO and claim the lower sales figures are a direct result of the recently launched Discounter range which now consists of 800 products.
In times of recession the supermarkets are obviously trying to entice as many customers as possible away from their competitors. In the six months leading up to 30 September, Tesco outspent its supermarket rivals, increasing its television advertising spend by almost 19% to £47.9m making them the UK's fifth-biggest TV spender overall.
So how much impact do the personalities in TV adverts have on your weekly supermarket shopping? Is Des O'Connor really the best person to be advertising the Christmas turkey or do you believe that whilst he might well appeal to pensioners, he is too old fashioned for the rest of us? If so, who would entice you?
We'd love the hear you thoughts...
On a personal level - I don't think celebrities have any effect on me - wherever they claim to shop....
However I have to say that as a consumer I have seen the change in local supermarkets as each one changes their marketing strategy and brightens up their stores to invite me inside.
Once inside however, it is the product availablity and customer service as well as obvious things like price, which will make me return.