Jul
05
Ulster Grocer’s 23rd Annual Marketing Awards 2011
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The biggest night of the year. The prestigious Culloden Resort and Spa on the outskirts of Belfast was the venue once again recently for the Caravan Ulster Grocers’ Ball and Marketing Awards.
This was the 23rd year that the event has been staged. For many in the industry, it’s the highlight of the annual social calendar and once again, the hotel played host to a capacity audience.
The event is organised each year by the local fundraising committee of Caravan, the grocers’ charity, and its director general, Gillian Barker was once again a special guest at the Ball.
Also returning as comperes for the evening this year were Sky newscaster, Dermot Murnaghan and local freelance broadcaster, Emma-Louise Johnston. Entertainment was provided by Newferry’s own Fiddler Adam and one of Northern Ireland’s most sought- after cover bands, Back Beat.
James Greer, who publishes Ulster Grocer magazine and who sits on the organising committee for the Ball, declared himself delighted with the Ball and the Marketing Awards:
“This is always an eagerly anticipated evening right across the grocery and food service industries here and we’re always very thankful and pleased when we know that everyone has had a super night out,” he said.
“We’ve been refining the formula of the gala ball a little each year and over the last two years, we’ve also raised the profile of the Ulster Grocer Marketing Awards a little too. As a result, I think the whole evening is better than it’s ever been and a fantastic credit to all those who are involved in making it such a perennial success.”
James expressed particular thanks to co-organiser, Debra Johnston of Food Force Ireland, whose relentless efforts are central to the event’s success every year; to all those who gave prizes and helped with sponsorship on the night and to the return sponsor for this year’s Marketing Awards, Elevator Promotional Management.
And the winners are…
Best Marketing Campaign
The Henderson Group
Today’s savings sorted
This year’s judges said that they felt this campaign had been “very professionally done”. Its objectives and strategy had been very clearly articulated, they understood their audience and cogent outputs had been demonstrated.
In its submission, the Henderson Group had frankly admitted that there was a premium to be paid for using convenience stores and that when the recession began to take hold in 2009, Northern Irish consumers appeared increasingly unwilling to pay it.
To combat this, Spar set in motion a marketing strategy which, it claims, was “truly tuned to its customers’ wavelengths” and which could positively change how customers thought about the brand, taking perceptions beyond convenience to include value for money.
Value was at the heart of the strategy and the Group aimed to deliver it in three key areas: Value aimed at key times in the day when families needed it most; own brand value and the deployment of special promotions offering added value, such as bogofs, wigigs and limited edition collectibles.
It grew from events in 2007 when, working with Genesis, Spar had created the ‘Sorted’ campaign platform. In its submission, it explains: “We found that this single word encapsulated the ‘no nonsense’, handy role that Spar played in people’s lives…This campaign was designed to highlight the many occasions throughout the day, week and year that Spar could help ‘sort’ for shoppers.”
But shoppers needs had fundamentally changed as the years moved on. Spar found that shoppers were after savings no matter what the occasion and so the original campaign concept was redirected to demonstrate that Spar could deliver against shoppers’ desire for both convenience and value for money. That’s when the tagline became ‘Today’s Savings, Sorted”.
The runner-up in this category was Allied Bakeries for its Sunblest campaign. The judges remarked that this had been an “excellent presentation”, demonstrating good brand positioning and consumer insights. “Well executed”, said the panel.
Best In-Store Consumer Sales Promotion
The Henderson Group (Spar and Vivo)
Shrek Promotion
The panel said of this campaign that it had demonstrated “timely and targeted” use of merchandising and resulted in “good results in terms of basket spend increase”. They noted that the promotion had run in 244 outlets and remarked that to manage a campaign of this size, with almost 50,000 repetitions, was “excellent”.
The Spar and Vivo chains teamed up for this promotion with characters from the successful film franchise ‘Shrek’.
The Spar and Vivo chains teamed up for this promotion with characters from the successful film franchise ‘Shrek’.
The Henderson Group rolled out an innovative in-store promotion offering shoppers the chance to ‘save and collect’ for 10 weeks from July until September last year. The campaign was designed to drive consumer loyalty through reward while increasing average basket-spend and footfall.
The characters chosen for the campaign was Shrek, Donkey, Puss and the Gingerbread Man as market research had shown that this group would have most consumer buy-in.
Retailer buy-in was also guaranteed by providing a full support package, including a retailer launch day in the cinema where the premier of ‘Shrek Forever After’ was shown; PoS materials, merchandising support and store visits from Shrek himself.
The campaign creativity was all about gaining attention, brand awareness and association with Spar and Vivo. Eye-catching images of the adorable Shrek characters were used to ensure instant recognition once shoppers stepped in-store. A full marketing campaign using various media was used to drive footfall to the stores.
Awarding customers with Shrek characters for their loyalty was a big success, says the submission. A total of 49,392 characters were sold over the period of the promotion. Total store sales increased by 8.6 per cent for Spar and Vivo on the same period in 2009. And sales analysed in 70 stores showed an increase of 6.3 per cent in basket spend during the promotional period.
Runner-up in this category was Kestrel Foods for its Forest Feast ‘Inspiring Ingredients’ campaign. The judges said that this had been “very professional” and remarked that everything the company had done had been “consistent”.
Best CSR Initiative
Tesco
Charity of the Year/Clic Sargeant
Britvic
Ballygowan Pink
It was the panel’s opinion that these were two “excellent entries” first place was awarded to both. While the contents of the Tesco submission is confidential, the judges said that this had been “a good local exposition of a national campaign”. There had been buy-in from all the sites, they added, with “a very significant output”. As for the Britvic entry, this had again, been island-wide with “good local application” and good support at store and consumer level.
Ballygowan Pink, working with Smarts, had developed a robust partnership with Action Cancer which focused on profiling this leading cancer charity as Ballygowan Pink’s local charity of choice.
PR was seen as the main opportunity to demonstrate the brand’s local connections with Action Cancer. A photo shoot and interview with Ronan Keating was secured to launch the campaign, but NI media interest was initially limited and Ballygowan Pink worked hard to make the event relevant to a local audience. Ulster model, Laura Patterson was sent to join the launch and appropriate photos were secured for the media tie-in.
A launch partnership was established with key local title, Sunday Life, in which a free bottle was offered with every edition and Action Cancer used its relationship with Downtown Radio and Cool FM to add a tagline to the ‘Be Part of It’ radio ad which highlighted Action Cancer as the beneficiary in Northern Ireland.
The campaign included in-store activity in Spar, Eurospar, Vivo and VivoXtra stores and tailored press releases were issued to the local trade media.
Ballygowan supplied hundreds of litres of Ballygowan Pink to dozens of Action Cancer fundraising events, including the high profile Moonlight Walk. A title sponsorship package was agreed for the event and Ballygowan and Smarts launched the event and worked with Action Cancer to maximise its impact.
Ballygowan’s sponsorship positioned the brand as title sponsor on Action Cancer’s outdoor and radio advertising and dedicated Walk microsite and it gave Ballygowan the right to brand the event.
The manufacturer further supported the initiative by helping to distribute an additional 5000 flyers and 300 posters through the Britvic sales team. This support was credited as being partly responsible for the success which Action Cancer enjoyed in recruiting 50 per cent more walkers for the event than in previous years.
Best New Product Launch or Re-Launch
Mash Direct
Farmers’ Garden Range of Potato Cakes
The judging panel decided that the winning submission had been “excellent and well rounded”. The objective was very clear, they said, and the strategy and outputs had all been shown. Genuine innovation and a real business need had been demonstrated, they added, and a “very creative approach” was adopted.
The Potato Cakes launch was one of the most successful to date for this innovative local company.
Officially unveiled at the Balmoral Show last year as part of the new Farmers’ Garden range, they were initially intended to help achieve a sales boost during the summer. But following their successful performance and the high level of demand over the summer, Mash Direct realised that the product could potentially be successful all year round.
In fact, the Potato Cakes have been so successful that the firm has invested in a new automated production line which, it says, will ensure quality and texture are not compromised during manufacture.
The Mash Direct sales team has overseen a successful promotional campaign aimed at raising awareness of the product. They have liaised closely with event organisers, retailers and the media to drive the success of the new potato cakes.
Over the last eight months or so, a series of different promotional activities have been undertaken in a bid to raise awareness of the product. These have included sampling at events, trade shows and retail outlets; advertising; PoS and use of the unique Mash Direct bus.
In its submission, Mash Direct points out that the Potato Cakes product has now out-sold its sister product in the range – Baby Bakes – by a factor of six to one and constituted a sales value of eight per cent of total retail monthly sales by the end of the summer.
The product had completed its volume objective within a matter of weeks of its release and its sales have continued to grow well beyond the summer season. It has, in fact, been the company’s most successful product to date and Mash Direct believes that it could sell as many as 50,000 units by the end of this year.
Best Off-Sales Drinks Campaign
United Wine Merchants Ltd.
Santiano Chilean wine neck collar promotion
Acknowledging that this had been “a very good campaign”, the judges said while the concept was simple, it had brought a sizeable increase in business for United Wine Merchants.
The campaign ran between July and October last year, offering consumers the opportunity to win one of two ‘girly’ breaks in London. In its submission, United Wine Merchants said that its objectives had been to increase awareness of the Santiano brand among both trade and consumers. The target was entry level females and United Wine Merchants was aiming to drive sales volume with a target of 15 per cent uplift in the brand across Ireland.
Neck collars were placed on 36,000 bottles of wine which were then distributed throughout 250 off-licences on the island. Consumers were to enter via texts, by telephone or via the Santiano website.
ATL advertising for this campaign included streetliners at 45 strategic locations and a press advertising campaign in licensed, business and consumer publications. PR activity included radio and magazine competitions and editorial coverage was gained in a series of titles including Hospitality Review NI and the main national newspapers in the province.
The advertising equivalent value of the PR obtained during the promotion is stated as £164,500 along with 878,980 ‘opportunities to see’.
In-trade activity included store displays and a trade display incentive which featured a patio set prize. Posters, stands and shelf-talkers were also made available.
In the end, the promotion attracted several hundred entries – 222 (web); 129 (postal) and 344 (text), equating to a response rate of two per cent. And the brand itself experienced a 19 per cent increase in sales during the promotional period.
Marketing personality of the year
Marketing Personality of the Year 2011-04-26
Paddy Doody – The Henderson Group
The title this year was awarded to Paddy Doody, the sales and marketing director at The Henderson Group. The judging panel agreed that the fact that Paddy’s company had won awards in two other categories at this year’s event was “testimony to his market-driven approach”. His commitment to the commercial drive of the business and the charity aspect of some of its work were important factors, said the panel, and they added: “He is well known and well respected throughout the industry and the profile of Spar has risen very significantly in the last seven years, in large part driven by Paddy.”
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