Sainsbury's: NEVER MIND THE POLLACKS

Credits & Description:

Category: Retail and E-Commerce, including Restaurants

Advertiser: SAINSBURY'S

Product/Service: SUPERMARKET

Agency: HAVAS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Date of First Appearance: Apr 6 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: HAVAS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT, London, UNITED KINGDOM

Creative Director: Mark Whelan (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Managing Partner: Chris Wood (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Managing Partner: Jim Dowling (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Board & Client Director: Davnet Doran (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Media Strategist: Jodie Butt (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Senior Account Executive: James Duffy (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Account Executive: Sara Lincoln (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Head of Branded Content: Greg James (Cake/Havas Sports & Entertainment)

Media placement: National Print - The Guardian,Daily Mail,The Sun,The Independent,The Times,Daily Mirror,Daily Rec - 6 - 20 April 2009

Media placement: Regional Print - Metro,The London Paper,Jersey Evening Post,Eastern Daily Press,Western Morning N - 6 - 13 April 2009

Media placement: Regional Print - Halifax Evening Courier,Nottingham Evening Post,Hull Daily Mail,The Herald (Glas - 6 - 13 April 2009

Media placement: Broadcast TV - BBC1 Breakfast,ITV Anglia,BBC Shropshire,Sky News,BBC News 24 - 6 April 2009

Media placement: Broadcast Radio - BBC Radio 4,BBC Radio 5 Live,XFM,Capital Radio,BBC Radio 2,BBC Cornwall,Radio To - 6 - 7 April 2009

Media placement: Broadcast Radio - BBC Radio Solent,BBC Northampton,BBC Wales,BBC Norfolk,BBC Humberside,BBC Radio - 6 - 7 April 2009

Media placement: Website - Guardian,Sun,Times,Independent,Daily Mail,Telegraph,Mirror,Daily Express,Sky New - 6 - 14 April 2009

Media placement: Website - Yahoo News,BBC News,The Grocer,MSN Video,Metro,Marketing,Ananova,Forbes,AFP - 6 - 14 April 2009

Media placement: Blogs And Forums - Guardian.co.uk/organ Grinder,Sun Online Disscusions,Independent Blog,Channel 4 N - 6 - 15 April 2009

Media placement: Blogs And Forums - Twitter,The English Blog,America Blog,Fishy McDonk,CNBC,LBC Blog,Lonely Planet - 6 - 15 April 2009



Results and Effectiveness

Sustainable sourcing became a populist story and a genuine environmental (and commercial!) success – sales of Pollack in Sainsbury’s rose 70%.

The combination of retail news, humour, fascinating package imagery and the integrated PR strategy generated national and international coverage, successfully securing editorial in all areas of media:

• 27 national print titles.

• The Guardian front page.

• National and regional radio coverage.

• Wide reaching online news and comment.

• 337 pieces of coverage.

To put all this into context, the campaign itself only cost £18,500, and generated £1.4m of PR coverage. That’s an ROI ratio of 77:1.



Creative Execution

We renamed it using the French name – Colin (pronounced colan), which in English is an everyday forename.

Press Release announced the findings from behind the fish counter at Sainsbury’s and that a makeover was underway.

The newly named Colin received new limited edition packaging designed by a renowned British designer, Wayne Hemmingway, in order to create standout in store and media interest. It was rolled out to ten key cities.

The image makeover and new name were revealed on April 6th 2009:

Mr. Hemmingway acted as spokesperson for the makeover, whilst Mon Plaisir, the oldest French restaurant in London, provided commentary and innovative recipes using “Colin”. Added to this was the filming of suppliers at sea in Cornwall, including vox pops of pollack fishermen.

This entertaining and populist tone was fundamental in creating a connection with Sainsbury´s staff and engaging shoppers and the media with the serious sustainable topic.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

As you know, cod stocks are depleting. Pollack, which is in the Cod family, is just as tasty and is a cheaper and more sustainable alternative, but Sainsbury's was finding it difficult to get people to buy it.

Sainsbury’s fish counter managers helped us to identify why pollack wasn’t popular:

1. Shoppers knew very little about the fish and how to cook it.
2. The name was identified as a barrier to purchase, with customers often embarrassed to ask for pollack - a word that rhymes with a notoriously rude word.

The first barrier - rational - could be overcome with increase knowledge of the fish and recipes.

The second barrier – emotional – was slightly more difficult. For inspiration we looked to France where they buy 70% of British pollack.

We gave this rather dull fish a French Makeover and applied a humorous approach to the name.