Remember when supermarket advertising used to entertain us in the commercial breaks? Tesco led the way with, first, Dudley Moore and then its ‘Dotty’ campaign with Prunella Scales, via Lowe Howard-Spink. Sainsbury’s inched upmarket as Tesco invaded its middle class territory with David Abbott at AMV steering it deftly through a diminishing gap, mainly with press and posters.
That was before Aldi and Lidl (and the everlasting cost of living crisis) upended the UK market and now we have the two market leaders building their whole marketing platforms on competing with Aldi prices (on a very limited number of products) and the dubious benefits of loyalty schemes. A case of numbers one and two aping numbers four and five (or maybe five and six, not sure where Morrisons sits now) – which is rather peculiar. Why don’t they just reduce all their prices? Oh, right, margins…sorry.
At number three (just about) remains Asda, once the leader in the low price stakes. It moved from long-term agency Publicis a decade or more ago and, bedevilled by the private equity debt taken on to buy out Walmart, has been all over the place. Including, agency-wise, spells at AMV BBDO (not a happy sojourn) and, briefly, Havas, which seemed to do OK.
Now it’s at Lucky Generals and it’s back to the future with a new ‘It’s Asda Price’ campaign with people once again tapping their back pockets to check on all that change they’ve saved (even though they almost certainly use cards or phones.) Former boss Allan Leighton is back in the hot seat and it certainly shows.
Leighton, who also had a stint running the Co-op, surely knows his business and if Asda can be competitive on price (and gets its IT and stock right, no mean feat) despite all that debt, then he deserves the proverbial dukedom and thanks of Parliament.
Still makes you wonder why people don’t just go to Aldi and Lidl (the likes of Sainsbury’s make it more difficult by snapping up every available supermarket site going and then filling them with self-service tills.) Supermarket shopping used to be a rather more pleasant experience, exemplified in the best ads.
Now it’s all new-style joyless UK writ large, with shoppers battered into submission.
In the somewhat circumscribed circumstances Lucky Generals does its best.
MAA creative scale: 6.
