Tesco: Tesco's Food Love Stories, 3

Credits & Description:

Brand TESCO
Entrant MEDIACOM LONDON
MEDIACOM London, United Kingdom Entrant Company
MEDIACOM London, United Kingdom Idea Creation
BBH LONDON London, United Kingdom Idea Creation
ITV CREATIVE London, United Kingdom Production
GLOBAL RADIO London, United Kingdom Production
FACEBOOK London, United Kingdom Production
JCDECAUX London, United Kingdom Production
MEDIACOM London, United Kingdom Media Placement
Nick Kidney Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
Kevin Stark Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
A-K Parker Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
George Brettell Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
Claire Stokes Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
Maria Sousa Machado Bartle Bogle Hegarty Creative
Ally Mee Bartle Bogle Hegarty Production
Katie Burkes Bartle Bogle Hegarty Production
Sarah Tooley Bartle Bogle Hegarty Production
Rachel Wickham Bartle Bogle Hegarty Production
Synopsis
Tesco’s Food Love Stories is a story of success - their most effective campaign ever, driving an incremental sales uplift of 38% YOY, with £231 million of sales being attributable to the campaign.
Tesco tasked us with boosting quality perceptions, so we innovatively partnered data with media to deliver a campaign personalised to food preferences.
Strategy
The food you love to cook, for the people you love.
While other supermarkets focused on food provenance, Tesco sought to connect with the nation through emotive storytelling and the relationship we have with mealtimes. “Food Love Stories” (FLS) was born to celebrate “the food you love to cook, for the people you love”.
A short story this was not. As Tesco’s first food campaign for three years, the strategy, anchored in insight, was to take a long-term view; changing quality perceptions would require commitment and a media strategy focused on delivering a through-the-line plan powered by data.
Relevancy
Tesco’s Food Love Stories is a story of success - their most effective campaign ever, driving an incremental sales uplift of 38% YOY, with £231 million of sales being attributable to the campaign.
At the heart of this was the most complex, data-driven media planning that Tesco had ever attempted, with the campaign being centrally planned across a wide range of paid channels, Tesco’s massive owned media estate, their earned channels and even using their staff as a media channel. Econometric data helped us pick the most effective channels. Data from Google and Facebook helped us personalise and localise.
Outcome
18% increase in quality scores and 38% increase in incremental sales - £231m in additional sales directly attributable to media
With scope to increase investment across media channels used, this story isn’t ending any time soon.
Since FLS launched, the YouGov quality score has increased by 18%. 75% of this attributable to our campaign. How’s that for a story?
Execution
Effective brand media: Econometrics proved AV, OOH & Radio collectively contributed two-thirds to improving both brand metrics & ROI and so were placed at the heart of the plan.
Data: Using data from customers and from Google & Facebook, we segmented the stories into four: family, healthy, vegetarian and convenience. This data-led approach allowed executional alignment to multiple groups’ needs across relevant media partners.
Owned media: We brought the stories to life throughout Tesco stores and our owned media including: POS, recipe cards, emails, Tesco magazine and tesco.com.
Test & Learn: Tracking & testing were used to constantly evolve: from shifting static display to online video in line with its impact on quality, to upweighting OOH regional bookings depending on quality perception.
Focus on long-term: Creative wear out was measured to identify story lifespans, enabling us to reuse assets and demonstrate a greater long-term impact.
Campaign Description
Love had been lost when it came to shoppers’ perception of Tesco’s food quality.
“Quality of food” is the biggest driver of supermarket choice, but Tesco shoppers thought they were too big to care. Figures showed food quality was their weakest brand attribute, yet this was a brand issue as food quality scores outperformed the big six in blind taste tests. Only when the brand was revealed did scores drop.
We needed to tackle this (mis)perception head on, reminding the nation of their passion for food.