Once upon a time, Britain’s supermarkets were proud to stand up and
shove out a load of press ads featuring lovingly shot products
emblazoned with bold red capitals screaming: ’Special Offer! Buy Now
While Stocks Last!’
That was supermarket advertising for you. But everything changed when
the ’big four’ - Tesco, Sainbury’s, Asda and Safeway - started moving
away from the rest of the pack, opening out-of-town hypermarkets and
offering more of a lifestyle element to the weekly shop. Suddenly
positioning was essential and, while the big four found their own
niches, the also-rans were left with little choice but to carry on
banging out the price message.
Not all were satisfied with this dull territory, however, and managers
started looking for other ways to stand out if they couldn’t do it by
offering extra services and details. Somerfield took a celebrity tack,
using Lesley Joseph - aka Dorien, the man eater from BBC’s Birds of a
Feather - to appeal to women who wanted to fit in a quick
value-for-money shop between making cups of tea for hunky repair
men.
The campaign ran for three years before Joseph was axed last year in
favour of the more down-to-earth fictional heroine, Annie, who had no
time for the fripperies that the big four offered. Unfortunately, it
seems Somerfield, in turn, had little time for Annie. The full-scale
agency review which has just been announced (Campaign, last week) is
likely to spell the end of the put-upon housefrau.
In the same week, it emerged that Iceland had officially appointed HHCL
& Partners to its pounds 10 million business, eschewing the incumbent of
almost ten years, Tom Reddy Advertising.
The questions smaller supermarkets must address are how can they
establish a niche in a market dominated by the big four; and how do they
establish a point of difference?
The larger supermarkets have their own theories. Adam Leigh, the group
account director for Safeway at Bates Dorland, says: ’Iceland hasn’t
gone to HHCL to bung out a ’frozen prawns only 69p’ ad, and Somerfield
will be looking for something new as well. Iceland’s brief won’t be to
compete with the others. Its customer does a different type of shop - a
top-up shop. I applaud Iceland for picking HHCL. Iceland has a naff,
downmarket identity but it’s an innovative company and just needs to be
given some personality.’
Somerfield’s personality was tied up in the Annie campaign, and the main
message - jostling with Sainbury’s value, Safeway’s appeal to young
parents, Tesco’s marketing-led initiatives such as Metro Stores and
ClubCard and Asda’s ’pocket the difference’ - was that Somerfield was
for people who weren’t that keen on shopping.
Critics of the campaign say that Somerfield’s proposition of ’shopping
in the real world’ has missed the mark. Leigh continues: ’Research has
shown that people’s response is, ’so where else do I shop?’. Somerfield
needs a to create campaign which shows that it stands for
something.’
Some say that achieving stand-out needn’t be clouded by finding a unique
proposition for shoppers or a service no-one else supplies. Celebrity
endorsement, it seems, is one sensible answer.
Kwik Save, for example, has just unleashed a major ad campaign using the
people’s favourite entertainer, Michael Barrymore. Ian Halley, group
account director for Kwik Save at McCann-Erickson, says: ’The role of
the campaign is to make people feel less defensive about choosing Kwik
Save on price. The downside of a supermarket which sells itself on just
that is that some people don’t want to admit they shop there.’
Halley is convinced of the power of the right celebrity - and is
sceptical about the effectiveness of RPM3’s decision to create a
home-grown one for such an important brand. ’The problem with using
Annie,’ he says, ’is that she can’t really carry a campaign on her own.
It’s clearly been hard to extend the campaign and, as a result, it must
be asked if Annie is big enough for the brand.’
On the other hand, Lesley Joseph’s presence in the Somerfield ads merely
prompted the public to talk about the ’Dorien’ campaign rather than the
’Somerfield’ campaign.
It would seem that the secret of surviving in the big four-dominated
marketplace isn’t necessarily about finding the right frontperson -
established or home-grown - or about a unique type of customer
assistance. It is simply about having a coherent message that runs
through all the marketing.
There are a wealth of customers who, for one reason or another, don’t
get to the out-of-town superstores. These are the ones who are open to
the smaller brands - as long as they are consistent. ’The successful
agency has to get to know every aspect of the business; to live with
it,’ Leigh concludes. ’You have to understand what the brand is about
and produce an appropriate and flexible campaign.’
Chris Satterthwaite, a partner at HHCL, hints at some radical plans for
the Iceland brand. He says: ’Iceland is one of the great companies that
believes innovation is a way to build commercial success.’
Having said this, a straw poll of agency people shows that most of them,
when looking into the crystal ball, predict that Somerfield will have a
celebrity in position in six months’ time. ’It is a route that it would
be foolish not to look down,’ Halley comments.
