Christmas Campaign of Sainsburys - Essay Example

Christmas Campaign of Sainsbury’s of Table of Contents Introduction 3 The Christmas campaign: Christmas is for Sharing 3 The Target Audience 3 Objective of the Campaign 4 Usage of Campaign Tools 5 Suitability of Tools 5 Suitability of Media 6 Recommended improvement in the future 7 References 9 Bibliography 11 Introduction Sainsbury is an UK based company best known for its retailing business. The company also operates in the financial and property investment sector. The retail segment of Sainsbury operates with over 1106 stores serving 23 million customers on a weekly basis (Marketline. 2014). Sainsbury has recently taken over the second position among the big four supermarkets in UK (Baraber, 2015). The retail products offered by Sainsbury include grocery products, foods and drinks, electronics products like television, household appliances, toy and other entertainment products. This paper is focused on Sainsbury’s promotional campaign for Christmas. It covers the promotional activities of the company, the target audience, medium of communication and usage of required tools. The Christmas campaign: Christmas is for Sharing Christmas in UK is the biggest celebration where the people involved in merry making, social gathering, and exchanging gifts. This gives the retail firms an opportunity to meet the customers’ need of buying gifts and other specialty goods for Christmas. The sudden rise in the purchase volume before the Christmas allows the retail firms to increase their sales thereby increasing their revenue. Thus Christmas is a major event that every retail company looks forward to. Sainsbury has designed its marketing campaign for Christmas termed as “Christmas is for Sharing” to attract the customers at a motivational level to buy and share gifts for their loved ones (Sainsbury’s, 2014). The Target Audience According to the theories discussed by Kotler and Keller (2011) approaching a customer group is done by three basic steps, segmentation, positioning and targeting. The segmentation allows the firm to select a market segment. For Sainsbury, it is the UK retail market segment. Positioning suggests how the firm wants its customers to perceive its value proposition. Finally targeting involves selecting a particular demographic from the entire population. Sainsbury is a multi brand retail store that offers a large portfolio of products belonging to a wide variety of piece range. Moreover, the ‘Christmas is for sharing’ does not target any particular customer segment, which suggests that Sainsbury has designed it Christmas promotional campaign for its entire customer base. Thus the target audience for this campaign is the entire UK population. However, Sainsbury is best known for its balanced positioning thereby targeting the middle and upper middle class of the society (Saunders, 2013). Thus it can be stated that the advertisement seeks to draw the attention of the entire UK population, but aims to increase its sales volume by attracting the middle and upper middle class customers in the society. Owing to the product variety of Sainsbury’s, the target audience also belongs to wide demographic range, which includes children to elders of both the genders. The income group also does not pose any variation as the product category of Sainsbury ranges from affordable to high priced. The ‘Christmas is for sharing’ campaign does not focus on any typical product based communication; rather it has highlighted the warm act of sharing during the event of Christmas. Unlike most of the promotional advertisements which are aimed at a particular market segment, the ‘charismas is for sharing’ does not have any direct aim over any particular segment. The company had decided to go for a corporate branding, where the campaign highlights the Sainsbury’s brand and not a particular product, discount offers or any other value proposition. Objective of the Campaign The primary objective of any promotional activity is to create customer awareness, increase brand preference and attracting customers to increase the sales of a firm (Kotler & Keller, 2011). The approach of the Christmas campaign by using the “Christmas is for sharing” advertisement fulfils the company’s objective of creating brand awareness (Fill & Jamieson, 2011) and conveying an indirect message to customers to buy gift items from Sainsbury’s. The advertisement has been designed to carry an emotional aspect enhanced by the story background of the World War I. Although the advertisement did not carry any direct message which indicates the customers to buy from Sainsbury’s, but the indirect message has been claimed to put a deeper impact on the viewers (Sandeman, 2014). The DRIP theory discussed by Fill and Jamieson (2011) suggests that a marketing communication is reinforced by constantly knocking the customers with messages through different tools and mediums. This as a result allows the company to break the clutter and create a top of the mind brand recall for the consumers. DRIP stands for Differentiate, Reinforce, Inform and Persuade. The differentiation factor allows the marketers to distinguish themselves so that the customers are attracted to them and not to the rivals. The reinforcement allows the marketers to strengthen the communication process so that it can create a long term impact in the customer’s minds, thereby causing brand recall (Cova & Dalli, 2009). Inform involves the dissemination of information among the customer, which will help them to make better choices in favour of the company. Persuade allows the company to convince the customers to buy a particular product or at least create a desire to visit the store. The four stages of DRIP enables the marketers to achieve different objectives all of which point towards gaining consumer preference (Ballantyne & Varey, 2009). This suggests that Sainsbury adopted the four stages of DRIP to enhance its marketing communication to attract customers and increase its foot fall. In the perspective of the SMART goal theory, setting an objective should be based on five different parameters, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound (Urdan, 1997). In light of these parameters the communicational objectives of Sainsbury can be explained. The specific goals of the company are to attract more customers for Christmas shopping. The progress of this objective can be measured by monitoring the foot fall and purchase behaviour. Objectives need to be rational and attainable. Sainsbury has successfully designed its campaign which has the potential to yield the desired result of increasing sales during the Christmas season. The time bound nature of the goals creates a sense of urgency, thereby allowing Sainsbury to accomplish its goals within stipulated time (ONeill & Conzemius, 2006). Media Mix The media mix includes all the promotional activities that Sainsbury’s has undergone. Video Broadcast. Billboards and Hoardings Radio Online Advertisement in official website as well as third party websites. Campaign tools Sales Promotion Above the line communication Indirect Marketing Print Advertisement Usage of Campaign Tools The success of any promotional activity or marketing communication is based on the use of suitable set of tools and media vehicles (Kotler & Keller, 2011). Sainsbury has used all the above mentioned campaigning tools to successfully deliver its marketing communication. The television has been used to broadcast its video commercial ‘Christmas is for Sharing’. Online video streaming services like YouTube has also been used to broadcast the video commercial to make a wide exposure. The tools involving printing media like billboards, hoarding and news paper has also been used by the company. Sainsbury has even used radio broadcast to deploy its marketing communication. Suitability of Tools For Christmas campaign Sainsbury has selected a series of promotional tools apart from television broadcast. However, Sainsbury has received several appreciation as well as criticism for ‘Christmas is for sharing’ advertisement. This suggests a high popularity of the advertisement among the UK population. According to the AIDA model discussed by Rawal (2013) any marketing communication works in four basic stages, Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. The Attention stage is where an advertisement draws the attention of the viewers by breaking the clutter created by other promotional activities. Breaking the clutter creates a strong brand recall among the consumers, which eventually builds up interest within the views towards a particular brand or product. After the level of interest reaches a certain threshold level, it then successfully creates a desire in the viewer to purchase a particular product or get associated to a particular activity. Finally, the desire eventually leads to action, where the viewer follows the created desire and purchases the product or engages in the proposed activity. The television commercial of Sainsbury has successfully broken the clutter by developing a unique storyline for the advertisement. The story of the advertisement highlights the war zone of World War I, and portrays the emotional aspect of the sharing custom of Christmas within the battlefield. This unique story line has captured the attention of a lot of customers as compared to that of the rivals companies like John Lewis (Williams, 2015). The commercial has highlighted the warm of sharing during the Christmas with an emotional approach, which as a result has built a strong interest and desire among the viewers to engage them in the act of sharing. Finally, the strong impact of the emotional advertisement has eventually increased the foot fall for Sainsbury’s thereby increasing its revenue. This suggests that the Christmas television commercial of Sainsbury has successfully worked in favour of the company. The choice of television as the medium of communication can be justified by the fact that television communication covers a large number of views at the same time. This advertisement was also circulated all over the internet via YouTube and other social media services. The company has also employed several other medium of marketing communications. The rise of social media and internet usage has opened up new opportunities for the marketers to interact with the customers. Sainsbury’s made its marketing communication in social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. This has allowed Sainsbury to create a more intimate level of communication with the customers. The communication via social media and other online communication acts as a below the line form of communication, where the consumer can interact with the firm. On the other hand the television commercials are above the line form of communication where there is only a one way transfer of messages. Therefore, in order to create a maximum impact Sainsbury’s has selected both the communicational medium (Ballantyne & Varey, 2009). Apart from the television and internet advertising the company has also conveyed its Christmas promotional activities by billboards, hoardings, and online advertisement via third party websites. Thus it can be stated that Sainsbury has deployed its marketing communication strategies though several different medium in order to create a deep impact of the communicational message. Suitability of Media Sainsbury is best known for their targeted communicational activities by tracking the purchasing pattern of individual customers with the help of their advanced customer tracing system. As a result it allows the company to recommend appropriate products and gift ideas for Christmas. Moreover, based on the frequency of purchase of a particular product category, Sainsbury also offers personal discounts to the customers. This as a result has allowed building up a close communication with the consumers thereby increasing its brand equity. According to Dwyer et al (1987), the role of marketing communication in the customer relationship building process has been described by the following stages awareness, exploration, expansion, commitment and dissolution. The awareness phase involves the customer knowing about the existence of the company. Since Sainsbury holds the second position among the largest retailers in UK, it enjoys a high level of consumer awareness. The second stage is Exploration, where there is a close interaction between the buyer and the seller. This interaction is achieved by Sainsbury by several below line personal communicational activities. The third phase is the Expansion where the mutual dependency increases between the company and its customers. Sainsbury’s has achieved this stage by creating unique value proposition for the customers by offering targeted discounts and creating close relationship with them. The fourth phase is the commitment where the customer builds up a long term loyal relationship with the firm. Sainsbury’s owing to its enhanced customer service quality has been able to create several loyal customers. The company has employed several customer retention strategies like loyalty cards and offering discounts to loyal customers, etc. Dissolution phase is characterized by the termination of the relation between the buyer and the seller. Sainsbury’s Christmas campaign has allowed the company to build up strong brand equity by appealing to the emotional faculties of the consumers’ minds. This has allowed the company to incorporate a deep seeded message in the within the views that Sainsbury respects the tradition of sharing gifts at the event of Christmas. The emotional appeal has also allowed the viewers to make an intimate connection with the brand image of the company. At the same time the clear message stating “Christmas is for sharing” creates an indirect indication that the customers should also involve in gift sharing activities by purchasing gift products from Sainsbury. This message has eventually led to increased sales of the company. Recommended improvement in the future The television commercial portraying the World War I scenario has although created a positive impact on the views and motivated them to step in to a Sainsbury’s store, but it has also received a lot of criticism as well. Some of the views complained that it is unethical to use the memories of dead soldiers and leverage it to sell products. Although the advertisement did not cause any violation of broadcasting regulations but it certainly had put negative impacts some of the viewers (Crone, 2014). In the near future, the company must avoid using controversial content as a framework for their marketing campaigns. Sainsbury should focus on the social gathering of families and friends involved in merry making. This as a result will not only help to avoid controversies, but also help the viewers to connect their daily lifestyle. Sainsbury’s was dependent on only one television commercial for the promotional activities for the 2014 Christmas. In the next year Sainsbury should design several television commercials. Each of them should target different customer profile and convey different communicational messages. This will allow the company to create a much deeper impact on the viewers by conveying the same message from different directions. The company should also use the social media in a much extensive manner to connect with the consumers in an intimate level (Duncan & Everett, 2008). Thus it can be stated that with the proposed modification in the future, the company will be able to ensure sustainable growth. References Ballantyne, D. & Varey, R. J. (2009) Creating value-in-use through marketing interaction: the exchange logic of relating, communicating and knowing. Marketing Theory, 6(3), 335-348 Ballantyne, D. & Varey, R. J. (2009) Creating value-in-use through marketing interaction: the exchange logic of relating, communicating and knowing. Marketing Theory, 6(3), 335-348 Baraber, L. (2015). 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