2023 Gold Integrated

Agency: Ogilvy UK

Client: Sainsbury’s

Entry Title: SmartShop

Executive Summary

Sainsbury’s had an ambition to change the habit of a lifetime: the way we shop. To replace the conventional way with SmartShop, an app that enables customers to independently scan items and check out via their mobile—unlocking personalised savings on products that customers buy most frequently. But take-up was slow.

Strategy

Old habits die hard. Everybody wants to shop smarter, but the real barrier is adopting a new behaviour can be awkward. Sainsbury’s customers have been shopping the same way for more than 70 years, a behaviour so engrained they do so without even thinking.

To drive behaviour change it was essential customers saw SmartShop as an inter-connected system. The team was keenly aware an experience is only as strong as its weakest touchpoint. This called for a thorough interrogation across the end-to-end experience.

Applying the COM-B behaviour change model identified priority barriers, guiding the customer journey and developing the following strategies:

• Create motivation by appealing to shoppers’ ego, make them feel smart not strange when using SmartShop.
• Tackle capability challenges by overtly modelling the new, slightly complicated behaviour.
• Overcome opportunity barriers by making the behaviour highly visible and normalised.

Creativity

The ‘Be a smart cookie’ campaign, narrated by very smart cookie Stephen Fry, uses light-hearted wordplay to bring the benefits of SmartShop to life in a playful and charming way. It shifts the focus away from the technical capabilities of an app into relatable customer benefits set firmly in the world of groceries, delivered with the fun and wit that is unmistakably Sainsbury’s.

A fully connected customer journey was enriched with qualitative customer research and store audits that helped drill down into the barrier of opportunity for SmartShop at every stage of the journey and the role for communications and media.

Results

In the six-week campaign period, it delivered a 14% increase on app downloads than was forecast for the entire year.

The campaign also achieved a higher conversion rate, managing to reduce the cost-per-install by 7%. Due to the carefully crafted journey and creative, customers were already primed and convinced of the value of SmartShop at the point of conversion—making them more ready to commit to the download.

Contributors

PHD Media, EssenceMediacom