Rock legends Status Quo joined forces with Marks and Spencer for a unique collaboration of their best-known song in a bid to win over a whole new generation of fans.
The band hope the re-worked version of their 1977 smash Rockin’ All Over The World will prove equally successful after being re-written as Savings All Over The World to mark the iconic high street store this week selling one billion of its ‘Remarksable value’ and iconic ‘Dine In deals’.
The retailer has seen its value sales skyrocket in the past 12 months by embracing social media sites TikTok and now Quo hope a whole new legion of music lovers will “la la la like” their song.
The idea for an anthem to rally the 65,000 staff came from the shop floor following a spate of viral videos by workers tasked with managing their individual store’s social media pages during lockdown.
That inspired customer assistant Jack Norbury from Wiltshire to submit a request directly to CEO Stuart Machin suggesting a song that every store could use on TikTok.
Jack had previously racked up millions of views for the M&S Devizes TikTok account with his videos all about the retailer’s grub.
After persuading Quo to re-write the song the band then popped to frontman Francis Rossi’s local store in Purley, Surrey, to perform a pop-up gig in the store’s fruit ‘n’ veg section.
And yesterday a huge selection of videos of M&S staff rockin’ out began flooding social media sites.
Having sold over 120 million records worldwide and recorded more chart hits than any other UK act, Quo previously enjoyed mammoth success in Australia when they re-worked their number one track Down Down for an advertising campaign with Coles Supermarket.
Francis, 74, said: “They say you don’t need to reinvent the classics, but we had a lot of fun re-recording one of our greatest hits for M&S. We then took it for a spin in their Purley Way store not far from me and everyone loved it. All thanks to a suggestion from a lovely lad called Jack – apparently he’s done several ‘viral’ videos about how good value M&S Food is, so we thought we’d beat him at his own game.”
Jack said: “When I heard that Status Quo was not only going to record a song for us but was also coming into a store to film a video it was a real ‘pinch me’ moment.”
“I already couldn’t believe it when my videos started getting over a million views on TikTok, but finding out that we were going to be recording with these rock & roll legends really was a life-changing experience.
Sharry Cramond, Director of Food Marketing and Loyalty at M&S said: “When we helped our stores launch their own social media accounts during lockdown, sharing vital information with local customers, I don’t think anyone could have predicted how much of a roaring success they’d still be – we now have over 1,000 store accounts and their videos receive 3.5million views every week.”
