2015 Bronze Public Sector

MEC UK

Change 4 Life

World's First Sugar Accumulator

The Team
Laura Robinson, Ben Aves, Orla Hugueniot, Lior Ash

Contributors
mySupermarket - Tech build of accumulator and access/integration of data sets for product nutritional information and shopper basket data

Campaign overview

The average Briton consumes an alarming 175 sugar cubes each week, often unwittingly. Many want to cut down, but struggle because sugar in our diet is hidden.

By making sugar visible at the point of purchase, the barrier of a consumer having to manually track the amount of sugar in their diet was removed.

For the first time, shoppers were able to see the accumulation of sugar in their basket while they shopped – which drove a significant purchase increase in all low-sugar badged products.

Strategy

In the real world of habitual shopping trips and rushed online orders, nutrition labels do little to help understand the accumulation of sugar content in a shopping basket. To change behaviour, Change4Life needed to do the leg work for the shopper and make this accumulation of sugar visible across a whole shop, not just single products.

Partnering with an online retailer gave open access to shopper purchase data and individual product data. This laid the foundation to design and build a bespoke solution that used data creatively to influence shoppers at online point of sale – the crucial moment when they make food and drink choices.

Unlike many campaigns, the idea also enabled the measurement of actual versus claimed behavioural change, with purchase data proving the increase in lower-sugar product purchase before, during and after the campaign.

Creativity

The world’s first Sugar Accumulator tool allowed online shoppers to see, in real-time, the level of sugar in their baskets.

The first stage was to identify low, medium or high-sugar products by comparing nutrient data against Government criteria, with an accumulation functionality quantifying these. This tool responded in real-time whenever a shopper added or removed a product.

Visually, the accumulator was kept simple to understand. A horizontal bar used the familiar nutritional traffic light colours to flag up high-sugar items shoppers had selected. This very visual device gave a constant reminder of the shopper’s food and drink choices at the crucial decision moment along their purchase journey.

Product swaps were then encouraged by highlighting lower-sugar alternatives.

Results

There were two clear outcomes from the campaign.

First, shoppers became more aware of the accumulation of sugar in their shop.

Second, they were successfully encouraged to swap to lower sugar products.

A comparison of year-on-year basket data from mySupermarket revealed a dramatic change of buying behaviour in favour of lower-sugar products recommended by Public Health England and promoted by this tool.

The results supported the notion that when people can see a direct effect of their actions, they are more likely to take notice and, more importantly, to make changes for a more positive outcome.