Sir Terry, I'll tell you what we want...

IT WAS, apparently, the worst Christmas in three years. That was certainly news to me. I had a terrific time. After blowing my Christmas spending budget, which already had more zeroes than that of a small South American country, I fully expected the perennial "jingle tills" stories in the newspapers to proclaim that retail figures had hit an all time high. But despite my concerted efforts it was not so.

Santa was not good to either Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy or Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose, whose stockings were definitely not as full as they would have liked.

Tesco share prices tumbled as trading opened in London after their announcement that Christmas sales figures fell short of City expectations. The 3.1% like-for-like increase was lower than the predicted 3.5% – 4.5% analysts were looking for, and Tesco was punished accordingly.

Marks & Spencer also suffered, with a 2% fall in like-for-like sales over Christmas. 2007 was their worst performance for more than two years.

According to the British Retail Consortium UK retailers have seen the slowest sales growth in December for three years, with sales up by just 0.3% year on year.

The overall trend is an unfortunate slow down from last year and as concerns continue to rise that the looming credit crunch and housing market slowdown are about to establish a firm hold, there will be some serious questions asked – and senior jobs lost, I would suspect – about the how and why of this year's poor results.

Now I'm not a corporate whiz, a retail guru, a City analyst, or even a qualified financial director, but I have a strong business background and, perhaps more importantly, I do pride myself on my shopping skills, honed to a fine art over more years than I care to remember or reveal.

I have one simple question to ask Tesco and M&S that may just cut to the chase: why did you waste millions of pounds on celebrity endorsements and has-been pop stars keen to stage a comeback, when it is apparent for all to see that they are not having the desired effect on sales?

It's not surprising really, I mean come on; who on earth would think that Posh, Baby, Ginger et al acting the goat in a supermarket aisle, hiding behind ridiculous masks and stacks of beans, could possibly entice shoppers to Tesco in their droves?

Sales of Marks & Spencer homeware and clothes were also down, by 3.2%, despite the best efforts of Take That, Twiggy, Myleene Klass and Noemie (Noemie? I can only assume she was the victim of an illiterate birth certificate registrar).

Hollywood "star" Antonio Banderas was drafted in to no avail (am I the only one who thinks his best performance ever has been as Puss-in-Boots in Shrek?). And obviously Take That in their very smart M&S three-piece suits couldn't help St Michael 'Rule The World'.

Even M&S food sales dropped 1.5%, which I find hard to believe, knowing how much of my cash is now in their coffers.

Even the least cynical person at a learn-how-to-be-less-cynical seminar, with an audience of the world's least cynical people, could see that both the Spice Girls and Take That got increased profile at a time they needed it most – and the supermarkets got bugger all.

It baffles me. Why do so many supermarkets regularly cough up vast amounts of cash to greedy celebrities who are no longer successful enough to earn a living from their singing/acting/dancing/posing/pouting/kiss 'n' tell careers? Is it a misguided perception on their part that celebrity sells? Surely they aren't stupid or naive enough to believe their creative advisers, are they? Is it laziness on the part of the ad agencies, who can't be bothered to actually do what they are paid to do? Or is it that the so-called creatives just aren't creative enough any more?

I would go with all of the above. And I suggest several potential solutions. First off, I reckon that money could be better spent elsewhere in the business and that if the supermarkets still can't function without celebrities then they should actually pay them in kind rather than in cash. Posh Spice can afford a new handbag anytime: what she really needs is a good feed, don't you think?

Supermarket executives need to get tougher on their advertising agencies and be clearer about their brief. It's not big and it's not clever and it's certainly not creative to whack a famous face on a brand, then sit back and wait for the revenues to pile in, and both execs and ad agencies should know better.

But my money (not that there's much left after Christmas, as I've already explained) is on the more realistic solution; quite simply, to take a leaf from the Irn-Bru book.

By far the best advert of the festive period was the Irn-Bru take-off of Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. There were no celebrities involved, the ad was clever, quirky, funny and definitely memorable. It appeared to acclaim on television, was much lauded on YouTube, and was performed with varying degrees of success in school playgrounds across the country. Stand up and take a bow, Leith Agency. Maybe you should give the two Sirs a wee call…

It's a hard lesson to learn, and losing money is always tough. Sir Terry and Sir Stuart will have their work cut out over the next few months to reverse the recent fortunes of their businesses against an increasing economic slowdown.

So in the meantime, please pay attention all you supermarket execs and ad agencies – wake up and smell the organic, fairly traded, coffee. The lure of celebrity is simply not enough any more. Use your imagination, get smart, demand more, and I'm sure next Christmas could be a completely different scenario.

PS: Having said all that I understand that Morrisons, due to release its results next week, is widely tipped in the City to have bucked the trend with the best Christmas sales performance of the lot. And who endorses Morrisons? Football pundit Alan Hansen. I'll leave you to interpret that one for yourselves.