In June’s store watch we visited stores in Cheltenham, and there’s a clear theme – the summer of sport, FIFA Euro 2024, Olympics, and Wimbledon.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a big focus on football, and the viewing occasions – numerous calls to action to ‘get match ready’, or similar messages, and cross category selling beer, pizza, snacks and ice cream. It appears watching football isn’t seen as an opportunity to enjoy healthy stuff!
In aisle there is an assortment of branded bays, as permanent fixtures or cardboard header boards (lots of 3D in Sainsbury’s), floor media and aisle fins, powerful gondola ends, and increasing digital in Tesco.
Sainsbury's
Sainsbury’s seemed the most football focused – huge array of beer features and pallets at the front of store, flags throughout the store and a dedicated ‘Enjoy the game together’ seasonal aisle one – they have certainly grabbed the Euro 2024 moment.
There’s always a certain polish to Sainsbury’s feature end space – well laid out and well presented gondola ends, e.g Belvita. However the in aisle branded bays are more ‘free style’ and less structured than you see in Tesco, which sometimes makes the aisle seem busy and cluttered. Occasionally they’re side-by-side, too, which adds to the noise. Hats off, however, to whoever managed the cardboard engineering for the Pringles stadium header, it’s a work of art.
Talking of headers, Sainbury’s is the unofficial home of the 3D header, and these bring a little bit of interest to the chilled bays. It was great to see our 3D work for Charlie Bighams in store, too (plug!).
A few notable mentions, one for frozen – Birds Eye and Wall’s Ice Cream doing a good job with frozen gondola ends (except the Wall’s window vinyl was installed the wrong way round!) and Oatly’s cheeky floor sticker in front of Alpro, telling shoppers to try Oatly instead. I wonder how Alpro feel about this tactic?!
Tesco
There appears to be a Wow bay in every category in Tesco now – these do look impactful and they have a strong and consistent format, unlike some of the executions in the other retailers.
There is more digital signage in Tesco too (even if at times it did look a little like the animations in my dentist’s waiting room) but, it’s getting better and more real time, with mentions of the England v Denmark game at 17.00, and ads for beers for the occasion, for example.
The loss of the yellow Clubcard price circle and resulting new Clubcard branding doesn’t seem to have harmed the communication, if anything it seems a little clearer and less cluttered with the simpler new design.
The brands that stood out had strong and consistent shopper journey comms, front of store, off shelf, and in aisle POS – Hellmann’s and Weetabix both showing class in this area.
ASDA
ASDA have their gondola end game nailed, these work so well and have huge impact. Several of the gondola ends were football themed and this gave them even more relevance. Again Hellmann’s were using all the touch points across the store for maximum impact.
There are brands loosely linking to the summer of sport, too, with sporty lines and visuals – nice tries from KP Nuts, with their ‘Nuts for every moment this summer’ FSDU, and even Warburtons are in on the act with their ‘Ba-goals’ creative. Is bagels and football a thing?
In fact, other activations did feel a little out of context if they weren’t sport related. However, that’s not true of the two Premier Foods activations for Batchelors and Ambrosia / Angel Delight hitting the spot with Superman and Minions. It shows that these recognisable associations really do lift the impact in store. With both of these, though, a little more info on the prizes might excite shoppers even more…
And, finally, another shameless plug for us, great to see our Wall’s ‘When Hunger Calls Grab a Wall’s’ brand line driving impact in their fixture – with floor media and header grabbing attention.
Morrisons
I was quite surprised that Morrisons wasn’t more football focused, beyond a few football promos from brands, a huge wall of beer alongside the tills, plus a little bit of ‘Get Match Ready’ cross category signposting and multibuy in frozen. Once again, Hellmann’s should be crowned champs of their in store game. (We won’t mention Grealish here, though…)
More widely, there are new cardboard bay headers being used rather effectively by brands – Whole Earth’s (another shameless plug for our Team GB promotion), and Bonne Maman added interest at the fixture, but it was Heinz soup’s ‘Craving Comfort?’ that seemed the most engaging execution of this type.
One particular POS really caught my attention, the fabulous Eiffel Tower by St Pierre – nicely done!
Waitrose
A simpler feel to Waitrose – notably there are a few departures from the Waitrose style POS to include fully branded FSDU’s, especially in the BWS section and simple branded bus stops on the shelves.
The store did open with ‘Good for the game’ entrance features which brought in cross category brands around the sporting occasions – broadly messaged so the ‘game’ could be football, tennis or perhaps even the Olympics.
The most unique activation was a bay for Sacla’ pesto, which featured a prominent message above the shelves, and also a smaller version of our branded bay work for Charlie Bigham’s also popped up in their chilled bay.
In summary – in June, it’s all about sport – and the brands that stood out leant into this, and even here, the brands that worked across the shopper journey had the advantage. The alternative has to be remain single minded and focus on clear brand or occasion messages.
