With competition growing and market share shrinking, 2014 saw Waitrose harness the power of print to increase dominance and stand out in a cluttered market.

1.
Waitrose
–
Newsworks
Awards
2015
Waitrose
–
Christmas
2014
Best
Newspaper
Campaign
Written
by
Harriet
Fisher,
Manning
Gottlieb
OMD
Word
count:
880
words
(excluding
Executive
Summary)
Executive
Summary:
Christmas
is
a
time
in
which
Waitrose
thrive
on
their
communications,
aim
to
take
over
the
market
and
dominate
share
against
their
competitors.
In
2014,
with
competition
growing
and
market
share
shrinking,
we
needed
to
tackle
Christmas
with
a
brand
new
approach
to
increase
dominance
and
standout
in
a
very
cluttered
market.
We
therefore
embraced
the
power
of
print
and
took
full
advantage
of
the
engagement
and
attention
that
it
delivers
by
running
big,
impactful,
category
1st
formats
in
both
the
Sunday
Times
and
Sunday
Telegraph
to
launch
our
Christmas
product
campaign.
We
stood
out
from
the
crowd
and
delivered
fantastic
recall
results
of
58%
and
an
interaction
level
of
55%,
which
far
exceeded
industry
benchmarks.
Background
&
Objectives:
Christmas
is
the
most
competitive
time
of
the
year
for
retailers.
Although
supermarket
spend
was
down
-­‐12.7%
YoY
in
2014,
we
knew
that
Christmas
would
be
less
effected
(it
only
fell
-­‐3.4%
YoY).
Therefore,
as
per
previous
years,
Christmas
remained
to
be
the
most
important
time
for
retailers
and
also
the
most
cluttered.
In
2014,
with
significantly
less
budget
than
other
supermarkets,
it
was
imperative
that
Waitrose
stood
out
from
the
crowd,
with
objectives
of;
•Bigger
is
Better
(make
the
first
hit
count)
•Be
disruptive
and
proud
•Be
selective
(less
is
more)
2014
saw
a
new
direction
for
Waitrose
strategy,
whereby
we
were
asked
to
behave
like
a
PR
channel
to
get
Waitrose
products
talked
about.
We
needed
to
showcase
all
‘Hero’
products
in
one
place
to
show
the
full
and
vast
range
of
our
Christmas
offering,
create
a
conversation
and
drive
fame.
With
newsbrands
being
ahead
of
the
curve
in
terms
of
trust
of
advertising
(63%
according
to
Nielsen)
it
was
the
perfect
vehicle
to
create
a
positive
PR
story,
get
the
brand
talked
about
and
launch
the
campaign
in
a
bold
and
disruptive
way.
TV
usually
launches
Waitrose
product
campaigns,
but
2014
saw
print
as
the
lead
medium
for
the
first
time
ever.
It
was
essential
that
we
were
in
the
same
newsbrand
space
as
our
competitors
but
we
had
to
be
bigger,
bolder
and
shout
louder
than
ever
before
to
ensure
cut
through
was
delivered.
A
difficult
task
with
smaller
budgets
than
most.

2. Insight:
Newsbrands
boast
a
strong
engagement
with
their
readers
and
given
that
99%
of
adults
now
media
multi
task,
print
is
still
one
of
the
only
channels
which
consumers
give
their
full,
undivided
attention
to
and
therefore
is
a
key
platform
to
use.
In
a
digital
age,
print
delivers
significantly
higher
engagement
than
the
so
called
‘new
media’
(as
quoted
by
Martin
Sorrell,
2015).
The
average
Times
reader
spends
around
40
minutes
reading
the
book
from
cover
to
cover,
making
the
platform
stronger
than
ever.
Engagement
with
a
brand
and
increased
consideration
to
purchase
are
driven
when
consumers
see
an
advert
in
a
familiar
context
and
this
context
effect
is
increased
by
24%
when
the
consumer
can
interact
with
the
physical
product
(source:
Newsworks,
The
Company
you
Keep
research,
2015).
This
tangible
nature
of
the
printed
product
is
something
that
no
other
media
can
deliver
and
therefore
gave
us
a
firm
strategy
to
use
print
as
our
lead
medium
for
the
Christmas
product
launch.
We
had
to
be
brave
in
order
to
deliver
this
effect
in
an
incredibly
impactful
way.
We
had
to
devise
a
plan
whereby
we
targeted
our
audience
in
the
right
environment,
delivered
scale
and
also
stood
out
from
the
rest
of
the
supermarket
retailers
at
the
busiest
time
of
year.
The
Idea
and
Plan:
We
know
that
both
the
Times
and
the
Telegraph
are
core
for
our
Waitrose
audience,
therefore
based
on
our
insight,
exploring
creative
routes
collaboratively
within
these
titles
was
an
obvious
fit.
We
needed
to
be
big,
bold,
impactful
and
engaging
and
most
importantly
showcase
all
of
our
products
in
one
place.
Both
titles
announced
their
new
format,
the
Jumbo
Panoramic/Super
Panorama,
at
the
back
end
of
2014
and
these
formats
launched
the
Waitrose
Christmas
campaign
on
the
16th
November,
showcasing
each
of
their
exciting,
new
and
unique
‘Hero’
products
perfectly.
Each
page
of
the
insertion
featured
a
different
product,
taking
the
consumer
on
the
Waitrose
Christmas
journey
while
meeting
all
of
our
objectives
in
one
go
Not
only
was
it
a
brand
new
format,
which
ran
as
a
category
1st
within
both
titles,
using
broadsheets
meant
that
we
were
as
big
as
we
possibly
could
be,
the
8
page
format
in
the
centre
of
the
book
was
bolder
than
Waitrose
had
ever
been
before
and
using
two
Sunday
titles
meant
that
we
were
reaching
our
audience
in
their
downtime,
driving
this
engagement
further.
This
generated
significant
standout
and
talkability
within
the
market.
The
Results:
The
results
delivered
against
the
campaign
were
phenomenal
and
fully
justified
our
recommendation
to
launch
our
biggest
campaign
of
the
year
with
the
use
of
the
Jumbo
Panoramic
format.
Post
analysis
research,
conducted
by
the
Telegraph
through
their
reader
panel,
showed
that
60%
of
consumers
recalled
seeing
the
ad
against
a
Telegraph
benchmark
of
40%.
82%
of
their
panel
agreed
that
the
insertion
caught
their
attention.
55%
opened
the
ad
to
look
at
it
in
full
and
44%
read
all
of
the
information
within
it.
58%
recalled
that
Waitrose
was
the
brand
associated
with
the
campaign.
55%
agreed
that
it
made
them
want
to
buy
one
or
more
of
the
products
and
overall
57%
of
respondents
had
done,
or
intended
to
take
action
after
seeing
the
campaign.

3. These
results
showcase
just
how
strong
the
level
of
engagement
was
for
this
campaign.
They
have
reaffirmed
the
strength
print
and
the
power
of
the
touch
effect,
which
encouraged
our
consumers
to
interact
with
the
brand.
The
campaign
was
recognised
and
well
received
within
the
industry,
MediaWeek
previewed
it
on
their
Twitter
page
-­‐
https://twitter.com/MediaWeek/status/533304281265602561/photo/1
We
proved
that
bigger
is
indeed
better,
we
were
disruptive
and
proud
and
we
were
selective
in
our
approach,
ensuring
that
we
met
all
key
objectives
set.
The
client
was
thrilled
with
the
results
and
we
have
since
seen
an
increase
of
their
market
budget
deployed
into
Newsbrands.