As the multiples gear up for the crucial festive trading period, a new survey commissioned by The Grocer reveals one in five shoppers will change where they shop for food and drink over Christmas.

The latest Shop Waves survey, conducted by Him!, found 21% planned to switch allegiances for their all-important Christmas shop.

Shoppers named Marks & Spencer the retailer they planned to visit the most (30). Other supermarkets frequently mentioned included Waitrose (eight), Sainsbury’s (seven) and Asda (seven).

Shoppers also plan to trade up on products, too. Some 42% of those surveyed said they were either ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to trade up to more premium food and drink products over the Christmas period.

And in what will be seen as a reason to be cheerful for retailers in the tough economic climate, 63% of shoppers said they planned to spend the same amount on food and drink as they did the year before. Just 16% said they would spend less, with the same amount planning to spend more. The remaining 5% did not know. The research comes in the week that Asda, Tesco and The Co-operative Group launched their Christmas offensives with high-profile TV ad campaigns.

Asda’s 60-second ad, which breaks during tonight’s The X Factor, portrays “the real story of Christmas through mums’ eyes rather than the perfect, idealistic Christmas often portrayed,” said Asda chief marketing officer Stephen Smith.

Tesco, meanwhile, revealed on Thursday the first ad campaign under new agency Wieden + Kennedy. The ad features a woman searching for a Furby toy in Tesco to the tune of Lionel Ritchie’s Hello. Tesco said the ads would highlight “what matters to the families of Britain”.

“We want Tesco to play a small but important part in everyone’s Christmas plans by helping with those elements which make it Christmas,” said Tesco group marketing & digital officer Matt Atkinson.

The Co-op Group’s ad also broke on Thursday. Directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty), and with a voiceover by Coronation Street’s Katherine Kelly, it focuses on the quality and availability of Co-op products in moments of family need at Christmas. Some 27 executions are planned over the next eight weeks.

The campaign also features a new strapline, ‘Here for You for Life’, which replaces ‘Good with Food’.

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