Making a supermarket chain the destination, not the default
A supermarket chain with 130+ stores and a growing e-commerce app needed campaigns that were meaningful, engaging and measurable — festive moments, freshness credibility, app adoption and a reason to come back weekly.
A 130-store supermarket chain whose app downloads were outpacing app engagement.
Four campaigns — a New Year basket, a freshness guarantee, digital adoption and healthy living — run across app, web, email, push and in-store.
Shopper engagement up 25%, average basket value up 20%, and active app users up 35% during campaigns.
Where grocery attention is won
Grocery is a habit business, and habits are formed at a handful of moments: festivals, the weekly shop, the first app order, and the point where someone decides whether a supermarket is a place to buy food or a partner in how they eat.
Seasonal and festival campaigns sparked high engagement and repeat visits. Bundled offerings across groceries, fresh produce and bakery raised basket size. Shoppers were open to digital-first experiences, but app engagement lagged behind downloads.
Four priorities followed: festive activation, cross-category growth, digital engagement journeys, and churn reduction driven by customer data.
The New Year basket
New Year is the peak shopping season, and spend was splitting across competitors.
Curated festive bundles — rice, sweets, oil, spices, soft drinks — rolled out multi-channel across in-store displays, app, email, SMS and social.
It made one chain the obvious place to do the whole New Year shop, combining convenience with the excitement of the season.
The freshness guarantee
Shoppers questioned supermarket produce freshness against wet markets and rival chains.
A "fresh or free" guarantee communicated through the app, social, email, SMS and in-store, alongside content highlighting local farmers and the supply chain behind the counter.
It answered the doubt directly and created differentiation that did not depend on price.
Digital adoption
App downloads were strong; engagement after install was not.
A first-order bonus of free delivery plus double points, convenience-led messaging, and a lifestyle question at onboarding that personalised each shopper’s product feed.
It gave a reason to place the first order and made the second one easier — active app users rose 35% during campaign periods.
Healthy living
Supermarkets are associated with convenience, rarely with long-term wellbeing.
A weekly programme of recipes, diet tips and meal plans, fresh cooked food through paid coupons, and cross-promotions that tied categories together.
It positioned the chain as a partner in how people eat, which is a far harder relationship for a competitor to discount away.
Omnichannel, loyalty and data in one loop
Campaigns ran across website, app, email, push and in-store, built on templates and dynamic content rules so they could scale without a redesign each time. Interactive messages adapted to app usage and category behaviour.
Loyalty was integrated rather than bolted on: points, tier progression and milestone nudges triggered automatically, with loyalty messaging aligned to the seasonal and lifestyle calendar. Real-time dashboards tracked searches, page views and sessions, so campaigns could be A/B tested and adjusted while they were still running.
Why it worked
Moments, not months
Campaigns were built around the moments grocery shoppers actually change behaviour.
Answer the doubt
The freshness guarantee tackled the real objection instead of discounting around it.
Bundles beat offers
Cross-category curation lifted basket value without eroding price perception.
First order, then habit
Digital adoption was treated as two problems: getting the first order, then making the second easy.
Loyalty in the loop
Points and tiers fired inside campaigns rather than sitting in a separate programme.
Measured live
Dashboards meant optimisation happened during the campaign, not in the post-mortem.
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