Since 2020, Kai Karotte has been the main character in ALDI's Christmas communication. In 2021, he returns with his entire family in order to inspire young families this year as well, because ALDI recorded a declining share of expenditure in this target group segment in the previous year.

In order to attract positive attention in the fiercely contested food retail competition, exclusive price and performance promises are not enough. In addition, attention- and image-driven measures are necessary to transfer sympathy effects to the ALDI brand and, in a second step to increase sales and frequencies, especially among young families.

The overall objective of ALDI’s Christmas campaign was to “Recapture Young Families” due to losses in this segment. To achieve this, we needed to increase sympathy and image within the upper funnel so that ALDI becomes their number one shopping destination again.

Our goal was to give children aged 4–9 a litte joy every day and above all with ALDI’s DNA: affordable or even free for everyone: The "Kai Karotte Christmas story".

A completely advertising free story that is continued every day. In the form of an audio advent calendar, we aimed to publish a 7–9 minute short story every day from 1st December to 24th December, available via a specially developed Amazon Alexa Skill and via all available podcast service providers.

In addition, the stories should also be available on Toggo radio, Germany's most popular radio station for children.

This triad of voice, podcast & Toggo Radio make the stories accessible throughout Germany at all income levels: in the well-known style of ALDI: democratising food retailing.

For the corresponding attention of the implementation, Kai's Christmas story should be advertised via paid media with focus on audio, social media and display ads.

The central point of our activation was Amazon Alexa. With the short voice command "Alexa, open Kai Karotte!", our very young target group could independently listen to the Christmas story about Kai and his family.

An exciting Christmas story told in 24 individual episodes – and certainly passed on to the parents, if they weren't already listening to the stories together with their loved ones.

But even though Amazon Alexa was the centre of attention, Kai’s adventure stories could also be listened to on Spotify, Apple Music and many more podcast platforms.

To further connect with the young families or especially the young children a cooperation with Toggo Radio was made so every story was accessible to everyone in Germany.

We promoted the stories via paid media:

• 15” Audio Ads on Spotify, YouTube and via programmatic Data RON (run on network),

• Display Banner,

• Social Media Image Ads.

Children and families couldn't keep their ears off Kai and his family ... and generated over 22.5 million contacts in Germany.

The relevant KPI for this campaign was to increase sympathy (strengthen image) among young families:

• During the campaign runtime an uplift of +10% could be seen on the value “family friendly”.

• And a +3% uplift on the value “sympathy” among young families.

Further the campaign generated 22,5 million gross contacts with Audio, Display and Social Ads and 240,000 gross contacts via Toggo-Radio. There have been 107,000 interactions with the Amazon Alexa skill and therefore interactions with the ALDI brand.

Kai’s stories were even in the Top 20 of Apple’s Podcast charts within the category "Stories for kids".

But what could be better than bringing joy to people with a beautiful story - especially at Christmas time?

And again it became clear: Christmas time is reading time.