Bargain Booze has reaped the rewards of a £1m TV and radio advertising campaign after reporting a 9.5% rise in like-for-like sales during its key Christmas trading period.

The advertising campaign, which represented Bargain Booze’s biggest ever marketing investment, reached more than 20 million people and highlighted the group’s leading price promotions over its two-week duration from December 11 to 24. Like-for-like sales increased by 9.5% over the same period.

Acting managing director Keith Webb said: “The TV ads worked really well for us, bringing in new customers and increasing the number of transactions.

“We didn’t do big reductions on multipacks and multibuys, but instead went for aggressive prices on single packs, and on the lines that we majored on nobody in the marketplace was able to beat us.

“In an alcohol market that is negative generally, for us to have increased sales by more than 9% shows that we must have attracted a lot of new customers. The TV campaign was a big investment but it was worth it.”

Overall like-for-like retail sales for the six weeks to December 31 were also up 3.4%.

Bargain Booze achieved annual retail sales of £557m in its last full financial year to April 30 2012 – up from £529m in 2011 - and is planning further growth in 2013.

Diana Hunter, currently Waitrose’s head of convenience, joins next month as Bargain Booze’s new CEO to support the company’s expansion.