SuperValu - We Believe Brand Campaign - iapi.ie SuperValu - We Believe Brand Campaign DDFH&B To...

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SuperValu - We Believe Brand Campaign

DDFH&B

The DDFH&B Group consists of DDFH&B Advertising, Goosebump, The Reputations Agency, RMG and Mindshare Media – making it one of the largest Irish companies in creative advertising, media buying and customer relationship/digital marketing. Together, they provide channel-neutral, integrated marketing communications campaigns that deliver real, measurable results. They achieve this level of integration by working in a number of small, multi-disciplined teams, calling it ‘fun sizing’. They continue to be one of the most successful agencies in Ireland, working with clients such as Kerry Foods, The National Lottery, SuperValu, eircom and Fáilte Ireland as well as new clients including Littlewoods, and Molson Coors.

COMPANY PROFILE

RETAIL AND FASHIONSponsored by Sunday World

AWARDS

AGENCY

CLIENT

LONG TERM EFFECTIVNESSSponsored by UTV RADIO

SILVER

SILVER

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To borrow shamelessly from Sinek’s influential thought model – ‘Start with the Golden Circle’[1]- the beginning of this story starts with his wise words - people don’t buy what you do, but why you do it.

This “why” doesn’t mean simply making a profit, but is the “why” you get out of bed in the morning, and more importantly “why” people should care.

Sinek argues that inspired organisations and people who start with the “why” all think, act and communicate from the inside out.

Based on our own experience with the SuperValu brand, we believe in the importance of this insight. And in the beginning of 2013 we set out to demonstrate SuperValu is one of those organisations.

After the dust of a successful 2012 had settled, where the hugely successful ‘SuperValu Range’ launch campaign generated positive impact on both the brand and business (winner of the coveted 2012 ADFX Grand Prix award), it was clear it would be challenging to continue to differentiate the SuperValu brand.

Decreased media support post- launch meant continued growth in sales and brand metrics were difficult to sustain. Although the brand was performing well, it was being challenged on all fronts by discounter competitors, who were not only aggressively targeting budget conscious shoppers on value, but stealing their clothes by encroaching upon previously ‘SuperValu owned’ territory pushing local suppliers and quality.

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND[1] Simon Sinek, Start with the Golden Circle – How Great Leaders Inspire Action, TED talk, uploaded 4th May 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4

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SuperValu’s traditional strengths were being hijacked and in order to survive, it had to embark on a voyage of self re-discovery.

This is a story about an indigenous Irish brand under siege from European discounters - and how it decided to stay true to itself and what it believes in by starting at “why”.

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

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Despite ambitious growth targets for 2013, the SuperValu brand ambition was bigger than solely growing sales and delivering a higher profit margin. They needed to differentiate the brand in a meaningful way to stay one step ahead of the very busy and very ambitious competition. This was how they would inspire shoppers to choose SuperValu, now and in the future. As their creative agency, we needed to come up with a long term solution to propel the brand forward, and keep it there. Key objectives were defined as follows:

Commercial objectives Accelerate market share growth

With discounters continuing to enjoy exponential growth, increasing market share was key to SuperValu’s ambitious growth plans. This was pertinent in the context of the pending takeover of Superquinn, a well-established Irish supermarket chain with premium, high quality perceptions in the eyes of its very loyal shopper-base. The objective of the takeover was to give SuperValu greater presence in Dublin, a traditionally weaker region for the brand. The newly-combined market share would position SuperValu as the largest Irish-owned retailer in the country. To ensure it was best placed to succeed, SuperValu needed to maximise share growth ahead of the takeover. Reverse the decline in footfall

As discounters experienced significant penetration growth, SuperValu was seeing a decline in footfall – a trend the brand needed to reverse. Drive SuperValu Range sales (+4% to +6%)

In a market where shoppers are consumed by value it was important to continue to drive sales of the SuperValu Range to positively affect footfall and value-for-money perceptions amongst shoppers.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES

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Marketing objectives Increase loyalty and brand affinity

We have seen that recessionary shopping habits continue to foster a consumer preference for repertoire shopping across retailers in the hunt for better value[1]. Whilst we knew it would be impossible to eradicate this behaviour completely, a more loyal customer would feel less compelled to shop around.

Improve overall brand metrics

The threat of discounters meant that a number of key brand metrics were under pressure as SuperValu either struggled to hold off competitor gains or was in decline. To achieve greater customer loyalty we needed to improve brand metrics in each of the key brand priority areas – Value, Quality and Local.

Role of comms

Although the brand was performing, in the face of such aggressive competition there was a risk the SuperValu brand, which had been part of the fabric of the Irish retail market for nearly 35 years, could start to lose its edge or not deliver on its potential.

The comms approach would need to work hard to give consumers emotional, as well as rational, reasons to believe in SuperValu.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES[1] “The average shopper visits three stores per week on average”, Empathy Research, Checkout Retail Intelligence, July 2013

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When Molière mused “the greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it”, we’re pretty sure he wasn’t speaking about retail. Retail today is perhaps the most challenging and fast-paced category of all, and has never been more competitive. And so we knew this task came with a number of challenges to overcome.

Our biggest challenge was finding a way to win shoppers back from the clutches of discounters, both in terms of buying behaviour and in their hearts.

The issue, put simply, was that discounters were everywhere - becoming not only more acceptable, but part of the norm for Irish shoppers as feelings of guilt or embarrassment attached to shopping there subsided.

With continued store expansion and substantial media spend, the discounter strategy was to be seen and heard as much as possible. As evidenced by their market share growth, it was clear shoppers were accepting them into the market as they evolved their positioning from ‘unapologetically cheap’ to ‘reasonable quality at lower prices’, and more recently ‘affordable Irish quality’.

As consumers increasingly shopped in discounters for more and more items, this was having an adverse effect on SuperValu’s performance, both in terms of volume and emotional shopper engagement.

In addressing this challenge, we had two key elements to consider.

THE TASK

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(1) How could we make the SuperValu Range the benchmark for value in-store?

We knew from qualitative research there was an ‘invisible value’ issue with the SuperValu Range. Consumers weren’t looking at SuperValu Range as an alternative to discounter’s own brand products, tending to compare the price of branded products in-store with discounter own brand prices instead. Furthermore, they lacked an understanding of the scale of the full range, despite it having undergone considerable expansion since launch with NPD in packaged, Prepared By and Kids’ Ranges. As the brand’s strongest value lever, we needed shoppers to see the savings they could make by shopping SuperValu Range.

(2) How could we protect SuperValu’s ‘local’ stronghold which had defined the brand for decades?

In its thirty-fourth year serving local communities all over Ireland, SuperValu had a long-standing heritage as a truly local brand. However, as consumer interest in supporting Irish grew, largely triggered by the horsemeat scandal and loss of Irish jobs during the recession, competitors had begun reinforcing these ‘reassurance’ cues in-store and across their communications. Although SuperValu’s local and community credentials continued to be market leading, competitors had begun to get traction with far less assets or genuine authority in the area. We needed to protect SuperValu’s traditional stronghold and reinforce the brand’s unique commitment to supporting local. To win back from the discounters, this would require not only doing something outstanding to win in such a competitive category, but force confrontation of the brand’s true motivation to do something meaningful.

THE TASK

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With such high aspirations, failure was not an option. We had one chance of getting the strategy right, or risk losing SuperValu’s position within this competitive market.

We knew we had a lot to talk about. As a big brand with national presence, SuperValu has a number of priorities across a diverse range of activity such as tactical and price led, NPD and food leadership, local and national sponsorships, supplier development and local initiatives etc.

But with such an array of initiatives, we realised that SuperValu sometimes struggled to clearly portray the impact of the collective. They needed a common thread to tie these brand priorities together – a way of telling consumers ‘all these great things’ with clarity and purpose.

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research analysis, we set out to uncover the best way to address this and discovered that SuperValu was facing a ‘Value Conundrum’ with three interlinked problems.

(1) They had value – but not enough valueStarting with the SuperValu Range launch, SuperValu had been telling consumers they delivered value by helping you “save a 1/3 on your shop”, but the more discerning consumer of 2013 needed to know how much this was in monetary terms – we needed to make savings more tangible.

(2) They had aspiration – but it wasn’t a reality every dayAlthough shoppers wanted to shop at SuperValu, there was a perception they couldn’t afford to all of the time - it had become aspirational for some.

(3) They were Irish – but not more ‘meaningfully Irish’As competitors wrapped themselves in the tricolour, it was harder to cut through as being Irish in a more meaningful way that would make consumers feel better about choosing SuperValu over other ‘Irish’ products/brands.

THE STRATEGY

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With so much choice in the market, we needed to give consumers a rationale for why they should choose SuperValu. How could we tell the SuperValu story, and all the things they do for their shoppers, in an interesting and meaningful way?

SuperValu had two big differentiators in their armoury - the SuperValu Range (delivering quality, taste and value comparable to branded products) and the brand’s local and community credentials.

Our strategic solution was to develop a new brand platform to demonstrate SuperValu has purpose based on three key pillars of Value, Quality and Local. And in so doing, we might just be able to inspire shoppers to choose SuperValu again.

THE STRATEGY

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Creative strategy

This was a great strategy in theory, but to uncover the “why” consumers needed, we had to interrogate what it is that motivates SuperValu to do the things they do.

We realised the answer had been staring us in the face all along when our Creative Director recalled one of his first visits to SuperValu HQ and being struck by a display in reception - the Musgraves philosophy.

“We are committed to our values which are about long-term stable relationships, not being greedy, honesty, working hard and achievement”.

To bring our strategy to life, we would use the founding ethos of the Musgrave’s philosophy to tell the story of “why”, by starting at the truth.

In line with this philosophy, a belief in doing the right thing is what sets SuperValu apart, and for our master ideas man, this was a striking revelation – Using the unique assets of SuperValu’s belief system, we developed a new brand platform for SuperValu to bring consumers closer to the brand by demonstrating shared beliefs.

This allowed us to not only show the substance behind the brand and explain why SuperValu do the things they do, but helped to organise the various initiatives under three core pillars, each representing core brand truths and values – Value, Quality and Local – which could be carried through all channels from in-store to advertising.

Use of channels

As this was the launch of a new platform, we needed a large-scale communications campaign to make an impact from the very beginning which would last into 2014 and beyond. SuperValu’s media agency Starcom recommended an optimal media-mix to deliver high impact and awareness.

THE IDEA

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We Believe in Value

Under the Value pillar, our strategy was to drive sales and footfall by highlighting how easy it is to save money with SuperValu Range.

Media strategy focused on TV as the lead medium, supported by Outdoor and offer-led Press. Launch TV was impactful, challenging consumers to see what they could save by switching from their regular branded shop to SuperValu Range. The key savings message of ‘save €80 on your weekly shop’ was reinforced throughout the campaign, in line with research learnings.

Starcom aimed for high impact with consumers, reaching 360 TVRs in the first three days and 75% of the population for 8 weeks, which was further supported by 9 weeks of offer-led TV.

To make the savings relevant to a local audience, local media published the results of several ‘shadow-shops’ with real customers in their local store.

We Believe in Quality

Our Quality strategy was to demonstrate real food leadership through two key initiatives.

‘Prepared by Our Butcher’, a unique range of quality prepared meal-solutions, was an opportunity to drive quality cues while also raise the profile of SuperValu in-store experts, a clear point of difference versus discounters. High TVRs reaching 69% of the population 3.6 times a week for a 3 week period ensured maximum impact, supported by Outdoor and Press.

‘Signature Tastes’, a new top-tier range of high-quality and locally sourced food, was an opportunity to appeal to the more discerning consumer. A high impact launch led with TV, supported by Press, Digital and Outdoor.

THE IDEA

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We Believe in Local

Activity under the third pillar sought to reaffirm SuperValu’s leadership position in the community by demonstrating commitment to local all year-long.

Media strategy was strategically focused on Outdoor, supported by PR and Press, and leveraged the brand’s sponsorship of SuperValu Tidy Towns and the GAA All Ireland Football Championship to reinforce SuperValu’s heritage as a truly ‘local’ brand.

Due to weaker brand perceptions in the region, Dublin-based Outdoor in high footfall areas and around Croke Park was synced to the GAA schedule, carrying tailored messaging of support for the remaining contender counties in the Championship. This was supported by a national competition for local GAA clubs to win funding.

National radio communicated two additional messages. ‘100% Irish’ reassured consumers on local sourcing and high quality, whilst ‘Three Times More’ communicated to shoppers that that every time you shop in a locally owned store like SuperValu, three times more money goes back into the local economy than if you shopped at an internationally-owned store.

THE IDEA

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We Believe’ was developed as a long-term strategy to differentiate the SuperValu brand and is therefore still ongoing as a brand platform in 2014. However, results from launch to the end Q4 2013 demonstrate it has been extremely successful, with early indicators it may be one of the best performing campaigns to date for the brand.

Commercial effectiveness

Growth accelerated ahead of target

Nielsen tracking shows that prior to launch, market-share growth was tracking at +0.5%. In the post-campaign period this increased to +1.7%.

Footfall increased The campaign was also successful in driving footfall, from -0.1% pre-campaign to +0.8% in the post-campaign period.

In addition to attracting 45,000 new shoppers at Christmas which was pivotal in helping the brand ‘win’ this key occasion and start 2014 with momentum.

Sales exceeded target

‘We Believe’ has been extremely effective at driving sales of SuperValu Range, with sales growth of +11.24% on average each week from launch, leading to a +8.6% year end growth ahead of the +6% target.

THE RESULTS

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In fact, 2013 sales have been so positive they have outperformed the very successful SuperValu Range launch in 2012.

Effect on total sales

In addition to SuperValu Range sales success, ‘We Believe’ had a positive effect on the total average weekly sales post-launch, which grew by +4.86%, an increase of +1.3% on average each week versus 2012.

Marketing effectiveness

Improvements in loyalty and brand affinity

To inspire shoppers to choose SuperValu, a key objective was to strengthen customer loyalty and brand affinity. A big positive for SuperValu was that following launch of ‘We Believe’, the net advocacy rating has experienced continuous improvement, shifting from +8 pre-campaign to +17 post-campaign launch.

We also experienced growth in a key brand affinity measure, with the number of consumers agreeing that “SuperValu is a store for people like me” increasing by 3% pre-launch to post-launch.

THE RESULTS

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Target audience

SuperValu won back Better Off Families and Budget Mum segments

Another key indicator of success was the strong gains SuperValu made with two key segments post-campaign launch which had been in decline in Q2 2013.

RedC tracking indicates that by the end of Q4 2013, share of spend with Better Off Families and Budget Mum’s increased by 6 points respectively compared with pre-campaign figures.

The brand’s performance was particularly strong with Better Off Families, recording the highest level of penetration, footfall and spend per occasion since Q4 2012. Whilst Budget Mum’s spend per occasion increased across main, top up and grab & go.

Brand metrics improved across five key brand priority areas

Whilst a key priority of ‘We Believe’ was to increase brand metrics in the three brand pillars of Value, Local and Quality; Red C tracking indicates that SuperValu ended Q4 2013 in a very strong position, having also achieved growth in Range and Shopping Experience.

The brand therefore was leading in four of five key brand priority areas – Local, Quality, Range and Experience, only beaten on price by Aldi.

THE RESULTS

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The role for communications

In addition to growth across key brand metrics which show perceptions of the brand improved since launch, RedC tracking shows ‘We Believe’ advertising recall levels were the highest in over two years, achieving 78% total advertising recall (unprompted) in Q4 2013 versus the annual benchmark norm of 60%.

TV prompted and unprompted awareness levels performed above benchmark norms, whilst we also performed above norms on Radio and Outdoor, with Press remaining in line with norms.

Further testament to the effectiveness of ‘We Believe’ is correlating a positive impact on brand image with shoppers’ total share of spend - with those who had seen advertising looking more favourably on the brand and more likely to have a higher share of spend.

Discounting other factors

Did SuperValu simply cut prices?

No, the average price of SuperValu Range items actually rose over the period because of increases in the cost of raw materials. This could have depressed sales, especially given that consumers had ‘expensive’ perceptions of the brand.

Did SuperValu increase its use of promotions?

In a price-sensitive market, all retailers have increased their use of promotions over the last few years. However, SuperValu has increased its use of promotions less than the market, and far less than Dunnes and Tesco who have been forced into defensive ‘voucher’ tactics to incentivise shoppers.

THE RESULTS

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Did ‘We Believe’ benefit from higher media investment than the SuperValu Range launch in 2012?

No, SuperValu achieved higher advertising recall levels with a comparably smaller budget.

Was the increase in SuperValu Range sales a short-term effect of investing in communications?

Early indicators for 2014 show signs of continued performance with sales already surpassing the equivalent YOY figures for 2013 (+20%), indicating it was not just short-term sales effectiveness.

Estimating ROMI

We have estimated the return on marketing investment as 130%, which indicates the campaign more than paid for itself, which is hugely significant given the challenges we faced in such a competitive category.

THE RESULTS

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We have already seen that consumer perceptions and affinity with the brand have improved post-launch of ‘We Believe’.

RedC data from March 2014 is further testament to this, recording an increase in SuperValu’s Net Promoter Score from 26 in Dec 2013 to 31 in March 2014, indicating that the impact of the new brand platform continues to effect shoppers and shape attitudes towards the brand.

Indeed, there are strong indicators that attitudes towards SuperValu continue to evolve in 2014, as we continue to see shifts in key measures under the core brand pillars of Value, Quality and Local. Whilst we continue to have ground to gain in convincing the more discerning and less familiar Dublin shopper on SuperValu’s Value credentials, recent tracking indicates the brand has made great traction in convincing this shopper on Quality, a priority message in ‘Prepared by Butcher’ and ‘Signature Tastes’ communications.

Store rating figures from January to March 2014 indicate that Dublin shoppers rated SuperValu more favourably than shoppers in the rest of the country on a number of measures; such as quality of own brand products, bread, fresh deli products and fish; whilst measuring in line with the rest of the country’s store rating for ‘quality of fresh meat products’.

Given the brand’s historic weakness in the Dublin region, this is a significant measure of success for SuperValu and suggests that the more discerning Dublin shopper is warming to the brand.

But it is not just a shift in consumer behaviour we have witnessed. Since the development of ‘We Believe’ as the new brand platform for SuperValu, anecdotal evidence suggests it has triggered a significant step-change within the organisation in terms of staff motivation and morale across all levels – from staff on the shop-floor to the upper levels of management.

This organising idea provided structure and clarity to brand and trade plans, facilitating more actionable and measurable initiatives under the key brand priorities of Value, Quality and Local.

THE IMPACT

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It helped galvanise retailers behind the brand and the SuperValu Range.

And perhaps the most significant bearing of ‘We Believe’ has been reminding the people of SuperValu, and certainly the people of Ireland, of the brand’s humble beginnings and the importance of staying true to your beliefs.

Because a belief in giving something back to the local community is what sets SuperValu apart, rather than simply making profit or chasing the bottom line. Every action SuperValu takes is important to the organisation, retailers and staff. This is not just something the company says – the very fact the philosophy is displayed in HQ reception demonstrates that SuperValu believes in doing business a certain way, a way which permeates all aspects of the organisation.

And sometimes we all need a little reminding of who we are and where we have come from – to know we have a purpose.

THE IMPACT

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‘We Believe’ has generated three learnings to date:

SuperValu learning - the need to continually drive own-brand to address everyday price perception with shoppers. Whereas SuperValu’s past activity was high/low focused through promotions, the right balance of promotions and everyday-low-prices has helped differentiate the brand, with SuperValu Range now a core part of the brand’s Value strategy.

Media learning - the effectiveness of optimal TVRs in 2013 has shaped media strategy for 2014.

Strategic learning - the importance of demonstrating brand purpose by starting at ‘why’ not ‘what’, and the benefit of single-mindedness to shape brand activity.

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NEW LEARNINGS

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In a market that has never been so competitive, SuperValu, an indigenous Irish brand which had enjoyed huge success in 2012 through their own-brand range launch, was under siege from German discounters.

With so much choice available, consumers needed a rationale for “why” they should choose SuperValu.

Using the unique assets of SuperValu’s belief system, the ‘We Believe’ platform was developed to bring consumers closer to the brand by demonstrating shared beliefs and values.

A large-scale communications campaign launched across a range of media with early indicators it is one of the best performing campaigns to date for the brand.

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