May 14, 2024 Industry news
Want to drive sales, boost visibility and reach an audience that is willing to pay more for premium quality or ethical practices?
Do you want to harness the power of one of the strongest distribution networks in the country or boost your brand’s image and credibility? If the answer to any of the above is yes, then securing a listing with Waitrose could be the next major milestone on your business journey.
And, did you know that out of home (OOH) advertising is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for increasing brand awareness, delivering targeted, high impact messaging and securing listings with the UK’s leading retailers? It is also far more accessible than you may think!
That is why we recently hosted a live webinar in collaboration with JCDecaux, the largest OOH advertising company in the world, and Waitrose, to help you capitalise on the incredible growth opportunities offered by this powerful medium.
Featuring four expert panellists, the webinar covered general tips and tricks for attracting buyers, the many benefits of OOH and how to maximise its potential, as well as some of the programmes and initiatives available to start-ups through JCDecaux and Waitrose.
Read on for a summary of the some of the key insights shared by each expert.
Kelly Richard, lead business growth manager at JCDecaux
JCDecaux really is a world leader in OOH media. In the UK, we look after posters and digital screens across the rail network, airports, various roadside formats and a huge retail offering across shopping malls and supermarkets like Waitrose.
As a business, we are actively trying to practice our core values around sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and helping SMEs scale up their businesses.
We do this through our marketing mentoring programmes which allow us to really put our money where our mouth is, giving additional support to businesses and campaigns that fall under certain areas.
Our social impact programme is designed for any business that has a sustainability or charity focus. This provides us with an opportunity to give added value to any “force for good campaigns and get more of those messages out into the public domain.
We also have the very successful NUTURE programme which is designed to support campaigns from small and start-up businesses with data sharing, creative advice and guidance.
We make our media more affordable in the crucial early stages of these businesses. We invest match pound-for-pound on your marketing spend, allowing us to financially invest without taking any equity in your business.
We also run audience led initiatives such as our “reach programme”, which is designed to give extra support to ethnic minority owned companies, and GENgage. This helps brands engage with the very affluent Gen Z audience in a more effective way. We know that 58 per cent of Gen Z audiences trust OOH and 60 per cent say they want to collaborate with brands on social issues, so this programme offers support to any brands that want to engage with this audience in a truly authentic way.
All of the JCDecaux programs make our media accessible to more businesses, giving us an opportunity to really showcase campaigns that align with our values.
Peter Woodbine, head of retail media at JCDecaux
98 per cent of the UK’s population are exposed to OOH every single week. It is not only the oldest from of advertising, but also the most trusted. We have a big insight and data team at JCDecaux who continually evaluate the campaigns that we display week in week out to make sure objectives are be met.
We can be very precise in terms of targeting. In the past, all we used to be able to tell our clients that X million people would be exposed to a set of screens we’d selected for the campaign.
But now, we can target ads using a whole host of data sources to accurately seek out and build a specific audience for you.
For example, the data on our system continually tracks mobile handset movements. It is fully GDPR compliant and completely anonymised but has all the owner’s normal demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity etc. but, on top of that, we can access their brand preferences, purchase history, web browsing history, subscriptions and memberships. This is all tracked based on their movement in relation to our screens. So, when we recommend a selection of screens, we’re only ever recommending the highest over-indexing screens for that specific campaign target.
In terms of what makes a good ad, simplicity is absolutely key. There is a lot to convey in a very short amount of time so don’t get too text heavy or use overly complex imagery. We can help you with all this and that service is completely free of charge. We’ve used AI and eye tracking studies to look at thousands of former campaign creatives and built a tool that advises how to tweak your creatives to make the most possible impact. Part of the beauty of OOH is that there’s no big, nailed-on, fixed end-costs like there are with other forms of advertising. It can be bought by share of time on each screen, by the screen, or even on a cost per-thousand basis for each thousand people reached. We have a solution for every budget, whether that’s large or small.
We see the benefits of working with companies right from the start of their journey so investment is matched for the first 12 months of trading. This can effectively double the size of the campaign while keeping it completely affordable.
Phil Eacott, media manager at Waitrose & Partners
Within Waitrose, we have a range of assets that can help brands connect to our customers in a really meaningful way.
If we put the right product, in front of the right customer, at the right time, the customer will typically buy that product.
This benefits the supplier, the retailer and also the customer, so there is a triple win when retail media works effectively.
Getting listed is one thing but you want to make sure your listing is a success and raise awareness with consumers from the beginning.
Retail media provides a perfect opportunity to do that because it provides opportunities to speak to consumers at every stage of the customer journey, whether it’s at home, while their out on the move, or within the store environment itself.
This can be incredibly powerful and is a unique advantage to retail media and at Waitrose, we pride ourselves on having a uniquely affluent, highly engaged audience that really trusts our brands.
My team will reach out to any new suppliers to explore options for activating media against their new listings. I would advise anyone who is newly signed up to Waitrose to get in touch with their respective media sales manager, almost from the off, to plan a successful launch and book in activity.
Any supplier to Waitrose can access standardised data related to their performance and we recently onboarded Dunnhumby who provide a supplier insight solution. This not only tracks sales and performance, it goes one step further by providing customer insight. It can tell you which audiences are buying into a certain product, the context of a product within a specific category and how it is performing. This is very scalable. There is a specific pricing model that takes into account smaller suppliers to make it very affordable.
Oliver Chadwick Healey, head of branded innovation at Waitrose & Partners
As with any large organisation, there are a lot of moving parts within Waitrose so suppliers have a lot of people they will need to talk to. My role is essentially to be the main point of contact, acting as a linchpin in the middle of everything, whether that be in relation to media, supply chain etc. It is an exciting role that sees me work with all manner of brands, trying to keep all the cogs moving.
The worst thing we can do is list a brand and then just neglect them and hope they know what they are doing.
We have to put that metaphorical arm around our brands and help them through the process.
When trying to secure a listing, the main thing brands need is perseverance. Most conversations I have with suppliers start with ‘I’m sorry for bothering you’. Don’t be sorry. That is your job, and ours.
It is in our benefit to find the next big thing so it really is in our interest to speak to as many new brands as possible.
You also need to be realistic. You’re probably not going to get listed in every single shop from the word go. There is nothing wrong with starting small and targeting the right locations for the right reason. Being in 50 of the right shops is probably more powerful and easier to manage to being 350. Don’t be afraid to start small, particularly if we are the first retailer you are dealing with.
Listen to feedback. Carefully consider all the comments you get from buyers, on social media or even your friends. If you are selling in farm shops and independents, go in and watch customers interact with your products. Read reviews online. They are gold dust. We have had entire teams of people who pour through our reviews on a daily basis so we can take action wherever we need to.
It is critical to understand your market and your product. Values are also crucial. You can’t move very far in any of our shops without hearing us talk about our strategy around our farmers, sustainability, the Marine Stewardship Council on fish, the Waitrose foundation, supporting our fruit and veg growers etc. If your product really works and aligns with our values, that is a winning combination.
You will need a little luck and good timing as there just isn’t enough space for everybody on our shelves, or on our website. You need to reach the right buyer at the right moment so timing really can be critical. For example, if I was a beef buyer, around April time I would be removing some of the roasting joints and stewing steaks and replacing them with burgers. The same thing happens every year as a fairly basic seasonal change, so you want to think about the seasonality of your category and how that could change throughout the year.
As retailers, we need – and want - to invest in smaller brands and give them a chance to shine. We want to work with you to find the best ways of bringing your products to life, getting them off the shelves and into baskets. Investing in our media channels is a brilliant way of doing that.
JCDecaux programmes
Supporting SME and start-up growth
JCDecaux have a range of different programmes to provide tailored OOH campaign planning and delivery for brands and organisations at every stage of development, from a wealth of industry sectors and with a wide range of objectives. Find out more below.
