Supermarket passes pub test
OPINION: If it wasn’t enough being in the middle of the last throes of a general election campaign, I’m now being bombarded with a whole other campaign asking for my vote: on whether I want to pay for plastic supermarket bags.
The mastermind behind this campaign, supermarket chain New World, is definitely getting cut through with this one.
I use the ‘‘Friday-night-afterwork-drinks’’ test – if people are talking about it, then the campaign is working. And they were.
New World’s BagVote campaign is asking whether it should introduce a 5 cents or 10c charge for plastic bags, which will go to environmental or community causes, or whether it should continue with no charge at all.
The campaign is a winner for the company, however you look at it. It’s being proactive about an issue it would inevitably be demonised over if it didn’t address.
Its supermarket rival Countdown has already dropped in my estimation by failing to tackle the issue head on, instead saying it’s waiting for a central government response.
New World is asking people for their views on something they care about, which will drive deeper engagement with the brand.
It’s seeking a mandate to act. Whichever way New World goes, it can’t lose favour with customers because it’s acting on what they want, so there can be no damage to customer loyalty.
Of course, up-to-date databases are worth gold. The campaign is giving New World an opportunity to harvest yet more contact details for potential customers, who are asked for an email address as part of the voting process.
They can also see what their current customers think, as they
Whichever way New World goes, it can't lose favour with customers because it's acting on what they want.
are asked to put in their club card number if they have one.
I’ve written before about the smart marketing folks at New World. They proved themselves with their ‘‘Little Shop’’ giveaways introduced in 2013, which drove people into a collecting frenzy.
Acting on customers’ unease with giveaways based on little bits of plastic, New World jumped to a more sustainable, less plastic campaign in 2016 when it introduced the ‘‘Little Garden’’ giveaways – something it has just relaunched this month.
This BagVote campaign is another example of how some simple yet smart marketing will cement the supermarket chain in people’s thinking by aligning with its customers’ values.
It’s also doing pretty well out of the unpaid media coverage the BagVote campaign is getting.
But shifting people’s behaviour isn’t easy. We’re much more motivated to change if we can get an immediate result, if it’s in our own self-interest, or if we’re facing social shame by not acting.
Behavioural marketing picks an issue and asks us to do things differently: Stop smoking, start exercising, eat fruit and vegetables five times a day, cycle more, recycle more, slip-slap-slop.
It certainly doesn’t always work. The United Kingdom’s fivea-day initiative has been running since 2003 but, after five years, fruit consumption had gone up up only 1 per cent and veggie consumption down 11 per cent.
However, last year’s move by the UK Government, which introduced a charge of 5 pence per bag, has led to a reported 85 per cent reduction in plastic bag use.
It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of the New World’s campaign here.
Some people might question whether it goes far enough.
Are the proposed charges high enough to drive change?
Should supermarkets be replacing plastic with biodegradable alternatives, rather than charging a minimal amount for something a lot of New World customers will just suck up as an added cost?
New World could go even further and give customers handy hints on how to address the vexed issue of getting plastic out of their lives and look at more non-plastic packaging options.
One thing’s for sure: The election aside, the plastic bag dilemma is certainly trending on social media sites.
By addressing the issue now, from a marketing sense, New World has bagged it. ❚ Sue Allen has worked in journalism, communications, marketing and brand management for 15 years.