Tesco preps campaign to ‘have new conversation with Britain’

Tesco is preparing a spring brand campaign that it says will be the start of a “new conversation” between the brand and UK consumers as the supermarket vies to put itself at the heart of communities, despite past criticism the supermarket has contributed to their decline.

Tesco

The campaign will keep Tesco’s “Every Little Helps” brand strapline, but aims to return its focus on helping customers and moving it away from representing offers and prices. No further details about the campaign are available.

In a video blog for Tesco seen by Marketing Week before launch, Matt Atkinson, Tesco CMO, says: “It has to be not every little helps Tesco, but Tesco: every little helps the customer, colleagues and communities we serve. We have to have this new conversation, and part of it is being part of the communities we’re in. It’s about being welcomed and making a difference to the communities we serve and the people we employ and doing good things with our size.”

The supermarket has come under attack in the past by critics that argue it poses a threat to local traders. However, the supermarket argues it “actively supports local communities” by “providing good quality, affordable food and often much needed jobs”.

Tesco has been gradually evolving its marketing since appointing Wieden + Kennedy last summer and Atkinson says the supermarket deliberately didn’t reveal an overhauled creative approach at Christmas despite much speculation that there would be a “big ta-dah moment”.

The decision whether to keep the Every Little Helps strapline or shelve it in favour of a new positioning was one that “polarised” Tesco’s marketing team, according to the brand’s creative agency Wieden + Kennedy.

Atkinson adds: “[Christmas] was not designed to be relaunch of the brand, it wasn’t intended to be that. It was an evolution towards the new voice that we’re creating for the brand. We were therefore trying to stay true to what’s at the heart of Every LittleHelps but reimagine it in a way and reemphasise the aspects of the brand that are important like the little things and bring a little humour back and into the brand. I feel like we’ve done that.”

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