Supermarkets risk missing shoppers’ emotional needs with Christmas price war
Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), the leading communications strategy, media buying and management agency, published the first wave of findings from its Supermarket UK study today.
The study revealed community and pleasure as values increasingly important to UK shoppers and in particular, supermarket shoppers. This swing is away from autonomy and responsibility.
The Supermarket UK study, powered by spaceID, SMG’s proprietary research tool, uncovers peoples’ real motives and emotional values by measuring subconscious reactions to 210 key words. Its findings show two supermarkets – Sainsbury’s and the Co-Operative – are best suited to capitalise on this new battleground of community (the importance of their neighbourhoods, friends and family) and pleasure (self-gratification and enjoyment of life). These will become increasingly important in 2012 to shoppers.
Competitive prices and quality, while important are ubiquitous and increasingly less of a differentiator in an economic downturn. The Supermarket UK study suggests that the ‘big six’ supermarkets need to place greater emphasis on fulfilling shoppers’ emotional needs rather than competing squarely on price and quality.
The study reveals how the major supermarkets fare when attracting shoppers who place the greatest importance on community and pleasure. Sainsbury’s (41%) came 1st in the list of ‘importance of community to shoppers’ followed by Asda (38%), Tesco (27%) then Waitrose (23%) in 4th place. Morrisons (10%) came last in this list, with Co-Op (23%) in joint 4th with Waitrose.
Top of ‘the importance of pleasure to shoppers’ was Co-Op with 41%. 2nd was Tesco (25%) followed by Asda (14%), Sainsbury’s (11%) then Waitrose (-3%) and finally Morrisons with -45%.
The study shows that for supermarkets to poach shoppers from rivals, they need to target customers seeking community and pleasure from their supermarket shopping experience in 2012 from the nearest competitor. For each of the ‘big six’ supermarkets, the study reveals the competitor with the closest value profile, demonstrating potentially the easiest poaching environment for each brand.
Sainsbury’s and the Co-Op have the highest proportion of regular shoppers with trending values of community and pleasure and as such are well placed to poach additional shoppers from nearest competitors Asda and Tesco who need to up their game to halt a decline in numbers of shoppers. Of the big six supermarkets, Morrisons trails the pack in adopting and promoting values associated with society and enjoyment and will need to reinforce these values to retain its regular customer base, for whom community and pleasure are important, as shopper values begins to shift.
Steve Parker, Managing Director, MediaVest states, “In an economic downturn, shoppers clearly want competitive prices and quality, however as the major supermarket brands go head-to-head, the new battleground is over providing a sense of society and enjoyment, probably as an antidote to the austerity of the times…Our research indicates that those brands that can differentiate themselves on community and pleasure will gain an extra advantage and a greater share of the changing consumers’ wallet.
Supermarket UK is an industry-wide series of studies into the changing values and behaviours of shoppers to the big six supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Co-Op. It will investigate the effect of societal changes – including the economy, new technologies and social media – on supermarket consumer behaviour, and examine trends for the future.
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