2025 Gold Social Media
15 Dec 2025
Agency: Wonderhood Studios
Client: Waitrose
Entry Name: Waitrose No.1
Executive Summary
What happens when a No.1 range meets a No.1 artist with a song about No.1? A cultural crossover that broke records. Waitrose surprised the UK with a collaboration that would shift the dial for the expectations of retail brand behaviour.
Strategy
Nostalgia was trending, but to cut through, the work needed to modernise it and spark talkability beyond the obvious. Social listening revealed the emotional pull of early 2000s pop, but S Club alone wouldn’t shift perceptions. The team needed to remix the familiar in a way that felt culturally sharp and creatively unexpected.
Enter DJ Jax Jones. Producer, remix artist and audience magnet. With 85% of his 761,000 followers matching campaign growth segments, and platform data confirming cross-generational appeal, he became the bridge between past and present. His Spotify and TikTok resonance gave the cultural idea commercial muscle.
The team built a strategy on three data-led principles: make it feel entertainment-first, not ad-first; maximise personal relevance through platform-specific creative; and create a campaign architecture where food, fame and fun intersect.
Creativity
The remix of S Club’s ‘You're My Number One’ by Jax Jones was the lynchpin, a cultural device crafted to spark joy, surprise and reappraisal. The team commissioned a bespoke two-minute version of the track, optimised for social video lengths, algorithm pick-up and repeat listening. From there, a music video was written, cast and shot inside a Waitrose store, transforming the everyday shop into a stage for dancing, nostalgia and culinary glamour.
Tone leaned into self-aware fun. The script and visuals nodded to 90s kitsch without tipping into cringe. Direction and choreography were designed to be warm, inclusive and full of energy - anchoring S Club and Jax Jones in an environment where the food was the star.
The campaign featured 15+ edit variants: product-led, character-led, food-porn-heavy and remix-ready, tailored for different audience interests and attention spans. AI subtly powered aspects behind the scenes; dynamic creative optimisation on Meta helped serve the right edit to the right user.
Results
Record brand momentum at 50% (vs 42% previous year) was attributed to the campaign. It drove highest consideration for the Waitrose brand on record at 47%. Among those exposed to the campaign, No.1 overtook M&S Collection for consideration. On TikTok, content linked to the No.1 range delivered a +1.5pt lift in ‘best-tasting food’ association.
Some 13.7% of the UK population generating positive talkability around the brand, the highest such metric for Waitrose in a decade. Engagement highlights included 3.92% CTR on TikTok Topview; 180.5 million impressions, 11.7 million engagements; 6.49% engagement rate.
Supporting content from the #TeamWaitrose channels also reached over 1.1 million TikTok views across 60 pieces of organic content, helping to further expand the audience base.
Contributors
Choreographer: Nicky Andersen, DJ & Producer: Jax Jones
The Team
Jo Lumb, Makers Co-founder, Wonderhood Studios - Katie Hunter, Makers Co-founder, Wonderhood Studios -Amy Downes, Creative Director, Wonderhood Studios - George Alleston, Senior Account Director, Wonderhood Studios - Amy Powell, Data Strategist, Wonderhood Studios - Joni Borteye, Junior Account Manager, Wonderhood Studios - Matt Timmiss, Director - Nathan Ansell, Chief Marketing Officer, Waitrose - Caroline Kinsman, Head of Marketing Channels, Waitrose - Sarah Hood, Head of Social, Waitrose - Emily Lowery, Senior Social Marketing Manager, Waitrose - Chloe Ball, Social Media Manager, Waitrose - Rachel Dunn, Social Marketing Manager, Waitrose - Olivia Francis, Influencer Marketing Manager, Waitrose - Georgia Constantine, Social Media Executive, Waitrose - Claire Earley, Communications Manager, Waitrose - Bianca Snowie, Senior Communications Officer, Waitrose