Darth Vader To Star in Dixons Retail's Latest Multi-Million Pound Ad Campaign

Dixons Retail has announced plans for a massive multi-million pound marketing campaign in another exclusive partnership with Lucasfilm.  Starring the formidable Darth Vader, the campaign highlights the outstanding in-store customer service experience that Currys and PC World has been working hard to deliver

The 40” advert breaks on Saturday 5^th November during the X-Factor on ITV1 and will run for three weeks during primetime TV across terrestrial and digital channels.  The ad will be supported by online advertising, as well as in-store activity, POS, social media, CRM and PR, and follows the success of last year’s campaign which featured Star Wars favourites C3PO and R2D2 browsing a Megastore.  

This year, the advert focuses on the great service customers can expect at Currys and PC World.  All 14,000 Currys and PC World store staff are continually trained to offer customers great service, ensuring they can help customers find exactly what they need. This confirms its commitment to delivering a better experience to customers.

Recreating the infamous scene in Return of the Jedi, where Vader inspects the progress of the Death Star, the ad sees Lord Vader arrive at a Currys and PC World store to assess and approve all 14,000 of Currys and PC World store colleagues, to see if they can meet his high standards.

While the principal cast for the TV advert are professional actors, the final cut also features five store staff who were chosen after submitting videos explaining why they should be featured in the campaign.

Directed by Rocky Morton from MJZ, the advert was scripted by Orlando Warner at M&C Saatchi, and shot at the Currys store in Thurrock over two nights, ensuring minimal disruption to customers and store staff.

The advert starts with Lord Vader’s spaceship landing in the car park of a Currys and PC World Megastore, deliberately crushing the only car in the car park.  As the store manager and Vader inspect the rows of Currys and PC World colleagues, the store manager assures Lord Vader that they have been training for months and are fully motivated, with the dialogue in the advert mirroring that of the 1983 film.

Lord Vader is impressed with the level of training the staff have received as a store employee reels off the attributes of a laptop under pressure.  As he walks out of the store, we hear a voiceover saying: “We continually train all 14,000 staff to deliver great service.  We can help.”

Staff training and development

Andrea Silver, Dixons Retail’s Marketing Director explains: “We have invested a huge amount in our staff training and development and we are very proud of the high level of customer service our store colleagues are delivering; so it makes sense that our new advertising campaign champions this.

“Last year’s campaign featuring lovable droids C3PO and R2D2 was so successful that we were keen to work with Lucasfilm again to find a way of demonstrating the investment we have made in improving and enhancing our store staff.  The scene from Return of the Jedi is the ideal showcase for this, as it delivers an entertaining and positive twist to the original threatening storyline of the film.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Lucasfilm once more on our Christmas advertising campaign and are really looking forward to seeing the results of this partnership.  We recommend our customers come and be surprised by the difference in the new in-store experience.”

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