For Poles, Christmas Eve is the most important celebration of the year and is marked by a 12 course “Wigilia” dinner – a feast of home-grown dishes which were often cooked just once a year.

These recipes are often passed down through generations and the scale of the feast means that some specific but vital ingredients like carp are often hard to find in the UK beyond local specialist food stores.

Sainsbury’s already stocked a number of Polish foods and realised they could play a more important part in making Christmas memorable for these communities.

To help preserve these important traditions, Poles look for advice and information about where to find ingredients in Polish press and within specific online Polish communities.

To make Sainsbury’s part of their Wigilia, we needed to make sure the brand was there when Poles were planning their biggest meal of the year.

We partnered with leading Polish magazine Cooltura and the leading Polish radio station PRL to create a Polish language integrated approach across print and radio.

The core of the campaign was a content partnership in Cooltura featuring recipes for 12 traditional dishes made from ingredients available at Sainsbury’s. These were accompanied by ad executions which revealed the ingredients used could be bought in Sainsbury’s – all in Polish.

On PRL, listeners were asked to phone in and answer questions about Polish Christmas dishes in order to win Sainsbury’s gift cards. This was augmented by on-air and Facebook trails which highlighted the range of Polish products stocked by Sainsbury’s.

The entire campaign was underpinned by paid search & Facebook multi-product ad campaigns, in both Polish and English to reach 2nd and 3rd generation Poles, planned around searches for the key ingredients/recipes needed to make the perfect “Wigilia” dinner.

The Polish Christmas campaign delivered record sales for the category over the campaign period, delivering double digit growth.

20% more Poles shopped in Sainsbury’s.

And success sustained beyond Christmas. By the third week of January, +40% more customers buying Polish foods vs. an average week.

Armed with the right insight, a strong message and an effective plan, Sainsbury’s played a key part in making Christmas a memorable celebration for Polish families all around the UK and cemented their role as a home of quality, affordable Polish food for the future.