Associated signs Waitrose ad deal

Associated Newspapers has agreed for the first time to run a long-term advertising campaign regionally in its national newspaper magazines.

The campaign, for supermarket chain Waitrose, will run for the next year in copies of the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine and in the Daily Mail Weekend distributed in London and the South-east, where Waitrose has most of its stores.

To date Associated Newspapers has only carried regional advertising in these magazines on an ad-hoc basis.

The work is Waitrose’s first branding campaign following the appointment of Banks Hoggins O’Shea to the supermarket’s full service account last December (MW December 18, 1997). Banks Hoggins media partner Jonathan Stirling agreed the deal with Mike Ironside, Daily Mail advertisement director.

Ironside says: “It’s the first time we have done this on a consistent basis. We haven’t done it over a full campaign.”

One industry source says Waitrose, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, may well have paid a premium price for the regional advertising campaign. He says it is extremely difficult to negotiate regional ads because a second advertiser has to be found to take the slots in the rest of Britain.

The ads break on June 6 in the Daily Mail Weekend. They aim to combat the chain’s image as an “expensive” store by stressing its competitive prices, high quality, and long-standing relationships with food suppliers. The intention is to turn existing “light” shoppers into those who rely on the store for their weekly shop.

News Analysis, page 21