New Valentine’s Day research (across 1,000 UK shoppers) from leading retail and shopper marketing agency, Savvy, has revealed that 37 percent of UK shoppers are planning to get involved in Valentine’s Day this year and predicts spending for this occasion to reach £855m.

Alastair Lockhart, Insight Director at Savvy, said: “Despite seeing a small improvement in consumer confidence at the beginning of the year, our analysis points to only minor growth in Valentine’s Day 2020. In part this is due to a tough comparative as the market grew by 7.8 percent in 2019, however we also attribute the slowdown to a shift away from eating out, to eating at home.

An interesting development this year is the growing role of social media as a source of inspiration. For example, 30 percent of Valentine’s shoppers expect to seek inspiration on Facebook, up from 19 percent last year. This is not entirely surprising as retailers and brands are more actively using social media to provide inspiration and also the platforms are becoming more convenient as they increasingly offer users the option to buy directly from posts.”

Key Findings:

Who plans to get involved?

• 37 percent of all UK shoppers plan to get involved in Valentine’s Day celebrations this year.
• 18-34 year olds are most likely to celebrate the event the most with 50 percent getting involved.

Of those planning to get involved in the event, how are shoppers feeling about the occasion?

• 60 percent of are looking forward to Valentine’s Day and 23 percent view the event as the best in the year.
• Around half of those celebrating the event will plan in advance what they will buy for their Valentine, though 44 percent say they will leave it to the last minute.
• Once again online Valentine’s sales look set for a boost with 57 percent of those celebrating planning to buy gifts from an online retailer. 45 percent expect they’ll shop using their smartphone.

How has the market for Valentine’s Day changed?

• 44 percent of those planning to get involved say they expect their spend to be more this year than last.
• 52 percent say that they don’t mind spending more to make Valentine’s Day more special.
• However, overall Savvy’s analysis suggests the market will remain flat with sales for the event increasing by only 0.2 percent on last year, reaching £855m.

What’s on shoppers’ own wish lists to receive?

• Female’s Valentine’s wish lists are headed by the usual suspects – flowers (45 percent, jewellery (35 percent), meal at a restaurant (33 percent) and chocolates (30 percent).
• Male’s wish lists are topped with meal at a restaurant (27 percent), chocolates (25 percent) and a home cooked meal (23 percent).
• Overall people’s wish lists look relatively well aligned to what they expect to receive.
• Women expect their partners will buy them flowers (36 percent), a card from shop (35 percent) and chocolates (29 percent). 20 percent expect their partner will take them for a meal at restaurant.
• Men expect their partners will buy them a card from a shop (28 percent), chocolates (27 percent) and homemade cards (13 percent)

Where are shoppers looking for inspiration for things to do and buy for Valentine’s Day?

• Supermarkets are the number one source of inspiration, mentioned by 52 percent of Valentine’s shoppers.
• Google takes second place, with 37 percent using the search engine.
• This year we have seen a significant rise in the use of social media. Facebook will by used 30 percent – up from 19 in 2019. And 21 percent will source inspiration from Instagram.
• Social media are more important inspiration sources for 18-34 year olds, with 43 percent using Facebook and 37 percent Instagram.

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In time for Valentine’s Day, Deliveroo is teaming up with Snog – makers of organic, fat-free frozen yoghurt – to craft the world’s first aphrodisiac oyster fro-yo.

Brits will be able to order Snog’s new dish, which contains a modest number of oysters, exclusively on Deliveroo on the 13th and 14th February.

Made with the finest and freshest yoghurt and freshly caught oysters from the North Sea, the aphrodisiac fro-yo costs £19.99 and will be available from all Snog stores on Deliveroo.

Bobby Burns at Deliveroo said, “This Valentine’s Day, we intend to play Cupid for those looking to embrace the holiday of love to the fullest extent. We’re very happy to work with Snog, who share our passion for pushing boundaries with innovative and delicious treats.”

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Peperami tapped into the season of love with a 2018 integrated Valentine’s marketing campaign, positioning its new Beef Animal, mascot for its Peperami Beef variant, as the ultimate dating guru to help love-struck people across the UK reach their romantic potential.

The first element of the campaign saw the launch of an experiential activation at Westfield Stratford City from February 9^th to 11^th. Consumers were able to meet the Beef Animal in person and get romantic advice from him in his very own pop-up Love Grotto. Consumers also had the chance to win a range of Valentine’s Day inspired gifts, including bespoke Beefy Bouquets – limited edition floral bouquets crafted around the hero Beef Peperami.

To increase awareness of the Love Grotto, advertorial placements in The Metro newspaper positioned the Peperami Beef Animal as the nation’s agony uncle, dishing out his dating tips to readers and encouraging them to meet him in person at Westfield.

All activations were amplified online and supported by boosted content, ensuring the target audience of 16 to 34 year old males was reached across multiple touchpoints.

Beef Animal ‘created’ his very own romantic Spotify playlist to put the nation in the mood for love on Valentine’s Day, and also featured in his very own music video. Designed with social share-ability in mind, the short video rolled out across all social and digital platforms.

To broaden the audience reach, Beef Animal was active on a popular dating app, allowing singletons to swipe right and ask him for some words of wisdom.

Pavan Chandra, Marketing Manager at Peperami, says: “The Peperami Beef variant has been a great success since it launched last year, and what better time to celebrate the nation’s love of Peperami than Valentine’s Day! This will be the first-time consumers will be meeting and engaging with the Beef Animal character, so we’re eager to see their reaction to the newest member of the Peperami family. Launching Beef, one of the most protein rich meat snacks in the chilled category, has resulted in the successful recruitment of more new shoppers – younger males – and we’re hopeful that this integrated marketing campaign will encourage even more millennials to enter the meat snacking category.”

The 360° campaign has full press office support, including a strategic influencer program, and will be amplified across the brand’s social channels.

The Peperami brand is owned by Jack Links, which (as LSI — Links Snacks Inc) was named as Brand Owner of the Year in the IPM Awards 2017, after collecting two Gold and two Silver trophies for its campaigns partnering its original Peperami mascot, the Animal, with the Angry Birds movie.

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INFINITI, the luxury car maker, is surprising customers in London and the South East this Valentine’s Day with bouquets of flowers delivered to their door.

The gesture is part of a Valentine’s Day campaign for the flagship INFINITI Q60 Sports Coupé, created by TMW Unlimited.

The campaign also features a film that will play out on screens in the Westfield Centre – where INFINITI have a pop-up store – and across INFINITI’S social channels.

Created under the banner ‘Love is… in the detail’, the film uses macro shots to draw out parallels between the beautiful detailing in the Q60 and a handcrafted bouquet of roses. We then see the bouquet chauffeured in the INFINITI Q60 to the door of an unsuspecting customer.

As well as 30 and 60-second versions of the ad, the campaign will also include outdoor ads. It launches on Valentine’s Day.

Sandra Subacius, Digital Marketing Manager at INFINITI, says: “At INFINITI we are proud of the craftsmanship that goes into every detail of our cars, so it was a good fit to highlight the parallels with the preparation of the flower designs, and of course, the opportunity to delight our customers with a small token in Valentine’s Day. The video was a great way of sharing this across all our markets with a simple message and beautiful imagery.”

The video can be viewed on INFINITI’s YouTube channel.

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