Faced with ambivalence from shoppers and tough competition from other supermarkets, FreshChoice had plenty of work to do to improve its “vanilla” brand.
Before it launched ‘That’s Shopping Different’, FreshChoice says it “simply existed” as an option.
“People felt slightly positive about us. If it was school, we didn’t bully you, but we also didn’t play with you. We lacked real connection with New Zealanders, and we weren’t meeting our business objectives,” say the marketing team.
The supermarket franchise has 51 stores nationwide with 51 different owners, but it admits there’d been a “severe lack of marketing support” for owners in the brand’s 29-year history.
“We had zero brand foundation, purpose, or values. Behind the logo we barely had a brand at all,” FreshChoice says.
With franchise owner WDL (a division of Woolworths NZ) consolidating the SuperValue and FreshChoice brands into one, FreshChoice finally had a decent marketing budget to work with.
It wasn’t a moment too soon.
“Despite positive year-on-year sales growth within the broader supermarket category, FreshChoice had struggled to increase its market share against dominant competitors. Our potential customers were driving right past our stores.”
FreshChoice faced challenges in price competitiveness, so it needed to redefine its value beyond dollar signs on shelves.
“We’re genuinely different. Our stores are all individually owned by people who live locally, each of whom has tailored their store based on the needs of their community. Compared to the cookie cutter mentality of the other supermarkets, we should be saying less about price and saying more about value,” FreshChoice says.
Although the marketing budget had increased, more stores meant more stakeholders, and FreshChoice needed everyone on the same page when it came to brand strategy.
This included Woolworths – which wants FreshChoice to perform better without cannibalising its own sales.
Embracing its distinctiveness – 51 different stores all linked by a common goal – FreshChoice set about being the local supermarket that’s right for each area, asking what suppliers and customers want and how to support the community.
By focusing on its unique proposition, FreshChoice significantly improved public perception of its brand, increasing total customer consideration by 28%. This helped FreshChoice lose its “bit vanilla” tag and boost market share value.
“Most tangibly, people no longer think fairly nice things about FreshChoice but keep on driving. They stop. They shop different. They know our name. And we know theirs.”
Judges’ comments
“A strong example of tackling a highly complex brand challenge in a very competitive category. This is a story of end-to-end brand transformation – from strategy, through extensive stakeholder management, through to execution in market. As the entry outlines, this couldn’t just be a fresh coat of paint, it had to be a fresh attitude, and it delivered.”
This was first published in the 2024 September-October NZ Marketing Magazine issue. Subscribe here.
