It was one of the festive season’s biggest hits – a heartwarming journey around the UK by Sainsbury’s that saw Roald Dahl’s iconic BFG character take a supermarket worker on the trip of a lifetime.

While including a range of not-so-subtle nods to the supermarket’s extensive range of quality producers and suppliers, this year’s effort had an even more important message at its heart.

Squarely focused on the importance of giving back at Christmas time, the retailer’s accompanying campaign was run in collaboration with charity Comic Relief and helped distribute more than five million meals to families experiencing food poverty over the festive period.

The decision to go down the big-budget, partially CGI-animated route seems ultimately to have paid handsome dividends, with creative effectiveness platform System1 rating it as the grocer’s ‘best ever’ Christmas spot.

Speaking exclusively to Marketing Beat, Sainsbury’s head of campaigns Emma Bisley revealed all about the campaign, from working with the Roald Dahl estate, to the film’s charitable message and its bold new creative direction.

How soon in the process was it decided to work with the BFG and the Roald Dahl brand? And how helpful can content tie-ins like this be in amplifying major campaigns?

The decision was made pretty early on in the process. Our creative agency NCA approached RDSC’s partnership agent Born Licensing who took the idea to the Roald Dahl Story Company, the home of Roald Dahl’s stories and characters and who own the rights to them. They thought it was a great fit and it has been a collaborative process from there.

Working with the Roald Dahl Story Company felt like the right collaboration, as The BFG is a famous, emotive character that not only helps personify the abundance of a Sainsbury’s Christmas, he also adds a giant dose of festive magic, which we wanted to bring to the public. It’s important to us to partner with a brand that shares our storytelling values in an authentic way, which this advert does in abundance.

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The work is also heavily infused with a charitable message – how important is this for Sainsbury’s brand reputation, not only at Christmastime – but throughout the year?

We’ve launched a shorter version of our advert which highlights how we’re collaborating with our longstanding partner Comic Relief to distribute over five million meals to families struggling with food poverty this winter. Until 31st December, customers will be able to donate through purchasing a variety of products and by making donations in store and online.

Most excitingly, for the first time, during December we’ll be donating every penny from the sales of selected by Sainsbury’s mince pies to the charity. We’re expecting to sell over 1 million of them during the month, so it’s a fantastic way for customers to get involved and feel good about buying a festive treat.

We work with Comic Relief year-round, to help raise money to fund initiatives that are designed to tackle food insecurity across the UK, ensuring communities have improved access to balanced, nutritional, and sustainable food sources now and in the future.

Earlier this year we raised over £2.7m for Comic Relief which will help provide over one million meals to help children access nutritional food during the school holidays.

To what extent did NCA help shape the creative’s direction, and how important have they been in helping re-define Sainsbury’s’ brand image and identity since they took over the account?

The advert was created with our advertising agency New Commercial Arts (NCA), who we appointed early last year.

Last year we worked with NCA to develop our brand promise ‘Good food for all of us’. This was launched with the aim to provide good food for all customers, whatever their budget, tastes or dietary requirements, and however busy their daily lives are.

Since then, our brand promise has been central to our identity. We know that well-sourced food brings families and friends together and makes every occasion special.

NCA played a big role in ensuring that ‘Good food for all of us’ was at the heart of the creative for this year’s advert. Our advert leads with the line, ‘Hey Sainsbury’s’, and will see our colleagues reassure customers that Sainsbury’s has something for everyone this Christmas.