Marketing Communication - Essay Example

J Sainsbury Plc. consists of Sainsbury, a chain of 504 supermarkets and 319 convenience stores, and Sainsbury Bank. Sainsbury supermarket is the UK’s longest-standing major food retailing chain having opened its first store in 1869. The Sainsbury brand is built upon a heritage of providing customers with healthy, safe, fresh, and tasty food. Today it differentiates itself by offering a broad range of great quality products at fair prices with particular emphasis on fresh food, a strong ethical approach to business, and continuous leadership and innovation. A large Sainsbury store offers around 30,000 products increasing the number of stores that also offer complementary non-food services and products. At the start of April 2008, 151 stores also operate an internet-based home delivery shopping service. Sainsbury’s strategies are different in the areas such as customer preferences. It owns a range of own-label products and offers universal customer appeal and the company regularly monitors its product prices to remain competitive. The values of Sainsbury’s brand itself carry the passion for healthy, safe, fresh, and tasty food at fair prices with a history of innovation and leadership and strong regard for the social, ethical, and environmental effects on its own operations. To engage the customers and assures them about the quality and pricing of the product, Sainsbury is publishing its corporate social responsibility report yearly. Sainsbury has been voted in Oct. 2007 as “Supermarket of the Year” at the retail industry awards. Green Grocers report and ‘A’ awarded supermarket by Greenpeace and best volume retailer and most improved supermarket awards established the brand name Sainsbury in the minds of its customers. These awards are a part of the marketing communication strategy to establish product values and quality. It helps a lot to engage the audiences to Sainsbury. Sainsbury is providing innovation and clear, honest information to its customers through proper labeling which helps customers to choose a healthier diet and the right food for their lifestyles. Sainsbury is the first supermarket that has put nutritional labels on the front of products starting with the name of “wheel of healthy multiple traffic light label” in 2005. Sainsbury is providing value and spreading to customers through various marketing communication processes. For Example, in Nov. 2007, it announced that palm oil used for its products with certified sustainable palm oil would be Sainsbury's ‘basics’. Sainsbury soap also contains certified sustainable palm oil.