Christmas lights don't have to be traditional - check out our novelty animal lighting
Our Festive buyer Sonal Patel was inspired to add the fun new designs after a Christmas shopping trip to New York...
We’re really excited about our new novelty animal lights. This is the first year we’ve done anything like this and we can't wait to see which ones are the most popular.
As festive buyer I look after all the Christmas lighting, trees and decoration, crackers and giftwrap for Asda. I wanted to add something a bit different to our lighting range for Christmas. Other retailers do big Santas, reindeer and snowmen lights but I haven’t seen anything like these before in the UK.
The inspiration came from a shopping trip to New York last year when we were looking round all the stores at their Christmas ranges and I saw something similar. Walmart also had similar novelty lighting – outdoor lighting at Christmas is huge for them because in America decorating the outside of your house is very popular and they really go to town with their lights.
On our sourcing trip we also found out that Walmart were doing similar lines.They also created a bespoke Octopus light for Asda to tie in with our kids’ theme this Christmas which is “Santa Jaws”. They look great in a child’s bedroom – they’re the biggest light in the range which is why they’re £35. All the rest are £25.
The sausage dog light is our bestseller so far - it's been the most popular. We saw a big surge in people wanting to buy the flying pig and this has also moved to our octopus and flamingo light too!
The lights can be used indoors or outdoors and they appeal to all ages. Anything to do with sausage dogs this year is proving really popular – we’ve got a hanging sausage dog decoration as well which is our most popular Christmas tree bauble. The flying pig looks great lit up outside – it looks like she’s about to take off!
The biggest challenge was designing the lights so they packed into the smallest possible boxes so as not to waste cardboard. The lights come in parts which are easy to assemble, complete with a string of LED lights and mains cable.
You can find the sausage dog, flying pig and unicorn lights in 267 of our stores as well as online. Designs which are online only are the octopus, narwhal, flamingo, and crocodile.