Born again Co-op plugs convenience asset in new Christmas campaign from Leo Burnett

It’s been a funny old year for the Co-op: a year ago the mutual looked dead and buried as scandals and incompetence at its bank threatened to engulf the whole movement.

Well the bank’s still there (although the Co-op no longer owns most of it) and the rest of the business – in particular Co-operative Food which runs its supermarkets and convenience stores – appears to be in decent nick. Bringing in former Morrisons finance director Richard Pennycock as CEO of the whole shebang has clearly steadied the ship.

In food the Co-op always looked the bridesmaid as its bigger rivals opened ever bigger superstores but the terms of trade have moved dramatically in its favour as UK consumers have decided they’d rather shop at smaller convenience stores – of which the Co-op has thousands.

So it’s plugging ‘Help is only a Co-op away at Christmas’ in a campaign by Leo Burnett (apparently we all forget something, like the turkey with a bit of luck).

Very nice – Leo Burnett really is the master of thirty seconds. The creatives there are probably gagging to be unleashed on two minutes of this and three minutes of that but with clients like the Co-op, Kellogg’s and McDonald’s that’s not very likely. But we like thirty seconds sometimes..