MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

Sainsbury’s 2014 Christmas advertisement analysis

Student ID: 27929086

Word count: 1898

1
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

Introduction
This report gives a perspective on J Sainsbury plc’s Christmas 2014 television
advertisement campaign, its impact on the organisation’s reputation, sales performance and
insights into how other large retailers tackled the same challenge. It also provides some
thoughts on marketing tools that Sainsbury’s may have used and also some ideas that could
have been used to able them to more effectively target its desired audience and promote
itself more positively in the eyes of actual and potential service users.
Background to J Sainsbury plc and 2014
Sainsbury’s has been a well-established company for over 140 years (Sainsbury's Living
Archive, 2016) and is currently the second biggest supermarket (by market share) in Britain,
as seen in figure 1, next only to Tesco’s.

Figure 1: Grocery Market Share 24th April 2016 (Kantar WorldPanel, 2016)

It has not held this position for long however. Until the end of 2015 Sainsbury’s was third,
with ASDA consistently ahead of them - since 2003! (Kantar WorldPanel) Other than their
main rivals like Lidl and other chains of discount stores they also have to compete with the
quality priced shops like Waitrose and M&S meaning that they are constantly being pushed
by their competitors to create new and innovative services and products.
While Sainsbury’s values and objectives are fairly standard (“to be the most trusted retailer
where people love to work and shop” (J-sainsbury.co.uk, 2016)), in practice a key
differentiator is that it positions itself as being a store for families with young aged parents;
as evidenced through its BOGOF promotions (most appropriate for larger households), and
its Active Kids voucher programme aimed at improving the facilities of schools and clubs to
attract children to exercise. This also shows how seriously as a company they take their
Corporate Social Responsibilities. In an attempt to gain market share, Sainsbury’s saw the
Christmas period of 2014 as an opportunity to “up its game” and invested in a television
advert to help it achieve this.

2
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

However, 2014 was a year full of austerity measures due to the financial crash in 2008. The
Guardian stated in January 2014 that:
‘The Treasury currently spends £1.9bn on housing benefit for 350,000 people under
the age of 25 currently, of whom around half have dependent children.’
Because of this house benefits were hit the hardest with the introduction of the ‘bedroom
tax’, and housing benefit cuts. People therefore were struggling economically to join in on
the Christmas festivities, especially in poorer areas where the effects were felt the most. This
brought tensions into the grocery market especially as now people had to choose between
the cheap price of a discount store like Lidl or the relatively high quality of a premium
supermarket like Waitrose, this is why the discount stores were doing so well over this period
and Sainsbury’s had to compete with this.
STEEPLE effects
The political austerity measures on the public had macro effects on the grocery market this
meant that most of them had to change their marketing strategies, and the Christmas period
was a great time to do this due to the natural social protocol at this time where everyone is
trying to compete with buying the best food products they can afford. Sainsbury’s changed
their strategy by focussing on four of the most important factors of STEEPLE at this time:
political, social, economic and ethical. I have spoken about the political factors and how they
affected the public above, however, I am going to go into more detail about the others here.
Ethical
Sainsbury’s decided to take a different approach in the advertisement, by appealing to the
emotions of what they hoped would be their huge expanded consumer audience. To
reinforce this they also released the £1 chocolate bar, which appeared in the advertisement
and was given as an unsuspecting gift to one of the German soldiers by a British soldier. All
profits (50p) of these chocolate bars went to the Royal British Legion. They used this to play
on people’s emotions as it gives them a reason to treat themselves in the austere times.
This strategy also satisfies the four P’s, we have already talked about ‘product’ and the
advertisement itself (‘promotion’) but, when ‘place’ is swapped for ‘time’ the advertisement
get even better from a marketing point of view as it was celebrating the century anniversary
of the miracle event that happened and their 20th anniversary for supporting the Royal British
Legion giving the audience even more of a reason to support it.
The donation milestone with the Royal British Legion was implemented into the
advertisement to simply remind the people of how much Sainsbury’s care about charities
and helping other, showing people that they take their corporate social responsibilities
seriously and that they are a company you should trust.
Economical
Out of the four P’s price was very important at this time and Sainsbury’s also made the
chocolate so affordable to just about everyone which obviously helped strengthen the ethical
stand point for customers buying the product, and was a great flanking strategy in order to
compete with John Lewis’s novelty penguin which were sold for £95! Seeing as this
advertisement was released about a week after John Lewis’s one they took their chance to
compete with the market leaders and attack the pricing that they had, this had extreme
benefits for Sainsbury’s as it made them seem the fairer of the two companies (charging
customers a fair price for a good product) and also made them seem like a modern company

3
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

keeping up with times as they want to deliver the product with a price that suits the customer
during the economically hard times.
Social
The advertisement was made to enlighten people and make them realise that Christmas is
time for sharing, the underlying connotations of the advert also meant that the hard times
would come to an end even when it does not seem like it. This was key at the time as it
would have given people hope that the economic hardship would come to an end and that
Sainsbury’s were there for you. However, this wasn’t the case and I will go into more detail
regarding the reception of the advertising later.
Strategies
Looking at the advertisement they opted for a bypass attack strategy; to gain parts of the
market off of ASDA and other market leaders. Coupled with a Mobile defence strategy so not
loss any share of the market that they have already. Both of these are evidenced by the fact
that the advertisement style was new and the only type like it that year (with the closest
comparison being John Lewis’s advert). This shows how innovative they were try to be as
Sainsbury’s also decided to stay out of the ‘price comparison war’ that Lidl, Tesco’s and
other big brands were competing in at this time. This could have shown that they were trying
to be seen to have more faith in their ‘superior’ product by not competing in this. However it
only took a few more months for them to jump in on the comparative price war as they saw
the success of how it was for the other supermarkets.
However, Sainsbury’s not doing this throughout the Christmas period gave them a
competitive advantage as what they were doing was fresh and new making it more
impressionable on the audience. Also using Ansgroff’s matrix the chocolate selling idea was
part of their product development strategy which as mentioned above had massive positive
implications to the company.
Results of the advertisement
The campaign originally didn’t go to plan however as it had very mixed reviews. So much so
that the advertising watchdog’s even had to issue this statement a few weeks after the
advert was released:
"After careful consideration of the 727 complaints we received about the Sainsbury’s
TV Christmas ad, the independent ASA Council has decided that there are not
grounds for further investigation.” (Marketingmagazine.co.uk, 2014)
This was a result of Sainsbury’s target audience. Sainsbury’s target audience are middle
class families with early adulthood parents (Manwaring, 2012). Their vision is to be the most
trusted retailer and they claim to “know their customers better than anyone else” and that
this gives them a “competitive advantage” (J-sainsbury.co.uk, 2016) [See Appendix 1 for
their full objectives]. The hugely negative response from their customer base clearly shows
that something went wrong with their market research.

4
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

Figure 2: Mothers average age and their number of live births (Office of National Statistics, 2016)

As you can see by Figure 2 their target audience has the highest birth rate in mothers. I
speculate that as their target group are younger aged adults and not the older generation
who might have remembered being told about the historical event in 1914; the middle aged
parents might not have known the historical truth behind the advertisement and thought that
Sainsbury’s were trying to make light of World War One and make up this fictitious event
trying to promote their company. People also commented on the fact that they could be
using the event to try and invoke feelings of guilt onto their customers (Sigmund Freud
Super-ego) as if the corporate body where trying to bully them into buy products. This shows
the two juxtaposed sides of selling emotive products, on the one hand they’re good for the
company because of all reasons I have stated in the ethical section of this report but for the
customers it can also make them feel pressured and belittled by the massive corporations
who do this.

Even with all of this negativity surrounding their advertisement they did manage to win most
of the hearts of the advertising experts and because of this most of the websites and forums
I have looked at they all state that Sainsbury’s advertisement was the best out of all of them
[see appendix 1.1 for more information]. This clearly shows that Sainsbury’s had the
advantage when it can to the analytics behind the advertisement and that they knew how to
make a really striking advertisement. However, by what I mentioned above they obviously
didn’t do enough market research to know their own audience.
Even though the advertisement wasn’t received very well it still lead to them taking over £8
million on Christmas Eve, their biggest ever day for convenience sales. (Sainsbury’s
Financial Report, 2015) And also lead to them having to contact their supplier for the £1
chocolate bars and having to double their initial order so I would say that this is a very clear
example of the statement “all publicity is good publicity”.

5
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

Sainsbury’s current situation & Conclusion

Now Sainsbury’s have grown to the second largest supermarket chain in the UK and are
continuing to grow. They’re doing this by expanding their consumer base by making more
Sainsbury’s Locals meaning that Sainsbury’s are more accessible to the older generation, If
only they did this at the start of 2014 and then this advertisement would have been much
more of a resounding success. The marketing lesson that this campaign has taught me is
that you should look at the negative aspects of your marketing techniques and from all
angles so that it cannot be misinterpreted by your audience no matter how clear the positive
implications could be and to also do proper market research as they would have found out
that the history is irrelevant to their target audience if they did.
Appendices
Appendix 1-Sainsburys business strategy and objectives (J-sainsbury.co.uk, 2016)

Our vision: To be the most trusted retailer where people love to work and shop.

Our goal: We will make customers’ lives easier, offering great quality and service at fair prices, serving our
customers whenever and wherever they want.

Our strategy: We know our customers better than anyone else. We will be there whenever and wherever they
need us, offering great products and services at fair prices. Our colleagues make the difference, our values make
us different.

Appendix 1.1-Advertising experts opinion on Sainsbury’s advertisement (Mirror, 2014)

Don Parker, advertising expert at Bournemouth University gave his verdict for the Sainbury’s
advert on the Mirror’s website saying that:

“This is easily the best Christmas advert of the year” and “It really connects with the British
public and has a central message about sharing too”. The only negative that he could pick
up on was that “the timing of its release in November is perfect too, but will it still feel so
perfect by Christmas Day?” This is hardly anything major as most of the adverts were
released around this time and some even earlier so Sainsbury’s competition would be at the
same disadvantage.

He also mentions the John Lewis advertisement which was Sainsbury’s main contender in
this ‘war’, he said:

“John Lewis have stayed with a formula that works for them by really connecting with people
on an emotional level with a lovely tale. But maybe they need to reimagine that formula
because I found this a bit odd. After all, the little boy effectively gives his pet a lady for
Christmas.”

6
 MANG 1013-Organisations in Context

References

BBC News. (2014). Ad Breakdown: Sainsbury's WW1 Christmas truce advert. - BBC News
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-30036471 [Accessed 27
Apr. 2016].
J-sainsbury.co.uk. (2016). J Sainsbury plc / Business strategy and objectives. Available at:
http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/about-us/business-strategy-and-objectives/ [Accessed 27 Apr.
2016].
Kantarworldpanel.com. (2016). Grocery Market Share - Kantar Worldpanel. Available at:
http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/grocery-market-share/great-
britain/snapshot/27.03.16/06.12.15 [Accessed 25 Apr. 2016]
Manwaring, T. (2012). Early Adulthood (Ages 24-34). prezi.com. Available at:
https://prezi.com/teuup_vou6pi/early-adulthood-ages-24-34/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2016].
Marketingmagazine.co.uk. (2014). Sainsbury’s WWI Christmas ad escapes ban despite
more than 700 complaints. Available at:
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1324130/sainsburys-wwi-christmas-ad-escapes-
ban-despite-700-complaints [Accessed 27 Apr. 2016].
Mason, R. (2014). George Osborne warns of more cuts and austerity in 'year of hard truths'.
The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/06/george-
osborne-britain-cuts-austerity [Accessed 25 Apr. 2016]
McPhee, R. (2014). Christmas adverts 2014: Who wins the festive TV battle and who's left
out in the cold? Mirror. Available at: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/christmas-adverts-
2014-who-wins-4625298 [Accessed 2 May 2016]
Office of National Statistics, (2016). Age groups of mothers and their birth rate. Available at:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/chartimage?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmar
riages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsbyparentscharacteristicsinenglandandwales/2014/8e1d2d9a
[Accessed 27 Apr. 2016].
Sainsbury’s Annual Report. (2015). 1st ed. London, p.16. Available at: http://www.j-
sainsbury.co.uk/media/2475907/sainsburys_ar_2015.pdf [Accessed 3 May 2016].
Sainsbury's Living Archive. (2016). Our Story - Sainsbury’s History 1869 to 1900 |
Sainsbury's Archive. Available at:
http://www.sainsburyslivingarchive.co.uk/collections/sainsburys-heritage/sainsburys-humble-
beginnings-1869-1900/ [Accessed 25 Apr. 2016].
Sky News. (2016). Austerity UK: What We've Lost through Cuts. Available at:
http://news.sky.com/story/1385757/austerity-uk-what-weve-lost-through-cuts [Accessed 25
Apr. 2016].