M&S “Pop It Away for the Big Day”: what it teaches us about knowing your customer
M&S knows exactly who it is talking to.
Its customer is busy. They’re juggling work, family, life admin and a hundred other things. They like feeling organised, prepared and just slightly ahead of the game, and that is exactly what their “Pop it away for the big day” campaign taps into.
It’s nothing to do with buying Christmas food early, it’s about the feeling that comes with getting organised. That little sense of satisfaction when you pick something up in September or October and think, that’s one less thing to worry about later.
It fits perfectly with a customer who is already multitasking, planning ahead and trying to make December feel a bit easier before December even arrives. That’s why the campaign works so well. M&S hasn’t started with the product, it has started with the customer.
It understands how they think, how they shop and, crucially, how they want to feel and that is where the lesson is for smaller businesses.
You might not have the budget, data or resource of M&S. But you can still know your customers incredibly well. In fact, being smaller can actually help.
Good marketing starts with understanding people
M&S could have launched its Christmas range by talking about mince pies, Christmas puddings, festive packaging and all the usual seasonal products.
Instead, it has built the idea around something its customers already do: I’ll just pick this up now and put it away.
There’s a practical side to that. Christmas is expensive and busy, so buying things gradually helps spread the cost and takes some of the pressure off later but the emotional side is just as important.
It gives customers that feeling of being on top of things. Prepared, in control and maybe even a tiny bit smug that they’ve got a head start.
That is the part many businesses miss.
Good marketing is rarely just about the product or service itself. It is about what that product or service helps someone do, avoid or feel.
A customer might technically be buying Christmas food, but what they are really buying into is an easier December, and that is an important distinction.
Knowing your customer makes everything else easier
When you understand your customer properly, your marketing gets much simpler.
You know what matters to them and you know the questions they’ll ask before they buy. You understand the things that frustrate them, what might put them off and what finally gives them enough confidence to choose you.
Without that understanding, marketing quickly becomes guesswork.
You end up writing website copy based on what the business wants to say rather than what the customer needs to hear. You post on social media because you know you should be posting something. You promote features that sound impressive internally but mean very little to the person actually buying.
The strongest marketing usually comes from turning that around, starting with the customer and then working backwards.
M&S has a huge advantage here, of course. It has access to customer data, research teams, sophisticated technology and a marketing budget most businesses could only dream of, but smaller businesses have an advantage too.
You are often much closer to your customers. You speak to them directly. You answer their emails. You hear the questions they ask before they buy. You know the objections that come up over and over again. You hear what they complain about, what they appreciate and why they chose you instead of someone else.
That is customer insight and there’s a good chance you already have far more of it than you realise.
You probably already have the answers
If you want to understand your customers better, you do not need to commission a huge research project.
Start by paying closer attention to the conversations already happening around your business.
When a customer chooses you, ask them why.
What were they looking for? What mattered most to them? Was there anything that nearly stopped them buying? What made them choose you over the other options available?
These do not need to be formal research questions, a simple and genuine conversation can tell you a lot.
The same applies to the questions customers keep asking.
If you run an estate agency and people constantly ask whether they should sell before they start looking, that is useful information. If you are an accountant and clients repeatedly ask when it makes sense to become a limited company, that is useful information. If you run a gym and new members want to know whether they need to be fit before attending a class, that is useful information.
Those questions tell you what people are unsure about before they buy and they also give you some of your best marketing content.
Instead of sitting down and asking, “What should we post this week?”, start with, “What are our customers already asking us?”
That usually leads somewhere much more useful.
Reviews can tell you just as much.
Most businesses look at the star rating, say thank you and move on. But the wording is often more valuable than the rating itself.
If customers repeatedly say your team is quick to respond, easy to deal with or good at explaining complicated things in plain English, pay attention to that.
That language tells you what customers actually value and it is usually far more useful than the generic claims businesses tend to make about themselves: great service, experienced team, trusted experts, customer focused.
There is nothing wrong with any of those things, the problem is that almost every competitor can say them too. The interesting and real stuff is usually much more specific.
Your team probably knows more than your marketing plan does
Another easy source of customer insight is sitting inside your business.
Talk to the people who deal with customers every day.
Sales teams know what objections they hear before someone buys. Customer service teams know where people get frustrated. Reception teams know the questions that come up all the time. Account managers know what clients really value once they start working with you.
That information should feed directly into your marketing.
Too often, marketing happens separately from the rest of the business. A team sits down to plan content while the people speaking to customers every day are hearing useful insight that never makes it into the conversation.
It does not need to be complicated, a quick monthly conversation around “What are customers talking about right now?” can be more valuable than a very polished content brainstorm.
Look at what people do, not just what they say
Customer conversations matter, but behaviour gives you another layer.
Your website, emails, social media, enquiries and sales data can all tell you something.
Which website pages are people spending time on? Which emails actually get clicked? What kind of social content generates real conversations rather than just likes? Which services attract interest but do not convert into enquiries?
You do not need to become a data analyst, you are simply looking for patterns.
If one article keeps attracting traffic, there may be a reason. If customers keep dropping off at the same stage of the buying process, something may be unclear. If a particular topic consistently gets saved or shared, it may be telling you something about what your audience cares about.
Use the data to ask better questions rather than trying to become obsessed with every metric.
And one important point: you are not the customer
This is one of the easiest traps for any business owner to fall into.
“I don’t like videos.”
“I never click on ads.”
“I wouldn’t read that email.”
“I hate seeing businesses post about themselves.”
All fair enough, but you are not necessarily the person you are trying to reach.
Your own preferences can be useful, but they should not be the deciding factor in your marketing.
M&S is not asking whether everyone in its marketing department personally wants to buy Christmas food in September, it is thinking about whether its customers might.
That shift sounds obvious, but it is often overlooked and it changes a lot.
Customer understanding is a small business superpower
A small business is unlikely to compete with M&S on budget, technology or research resource, but you can compete on closeness.
You can listen more carefully.
You can spot subtle changes in what people are asking for.
You can respond faster.
You can use the exact language your customers use.
You can make your marketing feel specific to the person reading it rather than written for a vague “target audience”.
And that is powerful because the best marketing often creates a very simple reaction or feeling: They understand me.
That is what “Pop it away for the big day” does so well.
M&S understands that its customer is not simply buying Christmas food. They are trying to get organised, spread the cost and make December feel easier.
The product sits inside that bigger need and that is the lesson worth stealing. Not the campaign line, the Christmas visuals or the budget behind it.
The customer understanding.
Because knowing your customer should sit at the centre of everything.
And sometimes, the strongest marketing idea comes from noticing one very ordinary thing your customer already thinks, feels or does.
Need a clearer picture of who you’re actually marketing to?
This is the kind of work we do with businesses all the time.
We help teams step back and refine the foundations of their marketing strategy: who their target audiences really are, what matters to them, what they need to hear, where to reach them and what their journey looks like from first becoming aware of you through to choosing to buy.
Because when those foundations are clear, everything else gets easier. Your content has more focus, your campaigns have a better chance of landing and you spend less time marketing based on assumptions.
If your marketing feels a bit scattered, or you’re not completely sure who you’re trying to reach and what will actually make them take notice, get in touch. We can help you get the strategy straight before you spend more time and budget on the tactics (and ideas!).
