Advertising

M&S have full saturation when it comes to advertising, spending on TV and radio ads, digital and billboard.

They use a pull policy as communication is directed at the consumer and bypasses many of the other channels that may be required by other supermarkets. M&S have used popular music, models and celebrities in their advertising campaigns which came at great cost. On their TV and Radio adverts they used a top and tail approach. They would start off with a main campaign i.e. the general food hall at the beginning of the advertising space and at the end focus on a specific product to maximise their message. (Visage 2017).

Nathan Ansell, Global Customer Director stated that strategy and brand position have helped food sales grow in the past 26 quarters. Previously, with no long term strategy in place the man directive was to ‘sell more stuff’.

At this time it was decided to define the target consumer group as a ‘food discoverer’. They wanted clear separation between themselves, which they classified as a food hall, which would set a specific level of standards, quality and experience. They wanted to be synonymous with this and to foster creativity in their products, not simply sell someone else’s even if that brand name was strong in itself.

In 2004 they started an advertising campaign ‘Adventures In’ which would focus on its brand attributes of being different, new, fresh and exciting (Visard et al, 2017).

This campaign was designed to show that M&S was a unique place to shop and was pushed in print, digital, social media and in stores. Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, Customer Marketing and Online Executive Director believde this to be an opportunity for his company to promote themselves as imaginative and innovative at a time when other retailers’ messages were directed at price.

Since Bousquet-Chavanne joined in 2013 the marketing spend at M&S has increased from 46.3m to 63.7m. 

He sees the importance of following customers to social media and so launched M&S first mobile campaign. He states that they expect mobile communication to be the primary driver of consumer engagement with ads in the campaign edited to be specifically mobile compliant.

As Aldi focus is on providing low-cost products for their customers this can sometimes give the impression that the quality of the goods is not up to the same standards as competitors so Aldi message is ‘Like Brands, only cheaper’.

Nielsen Homescan data showed that Aldi customers were not loyal, that Aldi was a ‘top up’ shop rather than a main shop for most. The report showed:

1.      Over 80% of Aldi shoppers displayed an extremely low loyalty level. Their average visit frequency was just 6 times across a full year and on average they were giving Aldi just 2% of their grocery spending7.

2.       Around a third of households shopped at Aldi in a full year but Aldi was a 'sometimes' shop for almost all of these (73%)8. (Jones & Saoulli 2012)

Aldi brand quality credentials were in question and consumers were missing the perceived quality of brand names they could get at  the big 4. Blind tests were done comparing Aldi brand and brand names and the public were invited into focus groups. Their creative brief was to ‘motivate disloyal Aldi consumers to buy more at Aldi by making them see that Aldi brands are on par with the famous brands and by reassuring them through peer to peer recommendations’.(Jones & Saoulli, 2012).

‘Like Brands but Cheaper’ was a success, achieving a 3% market share growth rate 0.35% higher than their target.