Food Love Stories
By MediaCom, London, UK
For Tesco
Crème de la Crème in category Media
Project 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.
“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.
Agency Solution
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”.
We used 5 ingredients of storytelling:
1. The tastiest stories spread like wildfire. Econometrics proved big and bold was key to drive reach. AV and OOH collectively contributed two-thirds to improving Tesco brand metrics and were placed at the heart of the plan. Radio further demonstrated its strength to heighten quality perceptions and deliver strong long-term ROI. Unique to the market, the channel was used as a food-based storytelling medium.
2. Favourite stories are personal. Using a host of media owner data including Google and Facebook, alongside customer mind-set insight, we segmented the FLSs into four groups: family, healthy, vegetarian and convenience. This data-led approach allowed executional alignment to multiple groups’ needs across relevant media partners, e.g. serving meals prepared in under 30 minutes to time-poor millennials.
3. Immersive stories are tricky to put down. So we surrounded shoppers with stories, bringing them to life through stores and our vast owned media including: POS, recipe cards, emails, Tesco magazine and tesco.com.
4. Stories unfold and evolve their narrative. Tracking was used to evolve the campaign; from shifting static display to online video formats in line with its impact on quality uplift, to upweighting OOH regional bookings depending on quality perception.
5. Loved stories are told time and time again. Which is why creative wear out was measured to identify story lifespans, enabling us to reuse assets and demonstrate a greater long-term impact.
We used 5 ingredients of storytelling:
1. The tastiest stories spread like wildfire. Econometrics proved big and bold was key to drive reach. AV and OOH collectively contributed two-thirds to improving Tesco brand metrics and were placed at the heart of the plan. Radio further demonstrated its strength to heighten quality perceptions and deliver strong long-term ROI. Unique to the market, the channel was used as a food-based storytelling medium.
2. Favourite stories are personal. Using a host of media owner data including Google and Facebook, alongside customer mind-set insight, we segmented the FLSs into four groups: family, healthy, vegetarian and convenience. This data-led approach allowed executional alignment to multiple groups’ needs across relevant media partners, e.g. serving meals prepared in under 30 minutes to time-poor millennials.
3. Immersive stories are tricky to put down. So we surrounded shoppers with stories, bringing them to life through stores and our vast owned media including: POS, recipe cards, emails, Tesco magazine and tesco.com.
4. Stories unfold and evolve their narrative. Tracking was used to evolve the campaign; from shifting static display to online video formats in line with its impact on quality uplift, to upweighting OOH regional bookings depending on quality perception.
5. Loved stories are told time and time again. Which is why creative wear out was measured to identify story lifespans, enabling us to reuse assets and demonstrate a greater long-term impact.