Sainsbury’s shifts its recruitment advertising in a bid to challenge Google and Facebook

Chief data officer Andy Day says the supermarket is putting analytics at the core of its business as it aims to disrupt the likes of Google and Facebook.

Sainsbury’s has changed its recruitment advertising strategy in a bid to steal talent away from some of the world’s biggest digital businesses.

Speaking during his session at the DataIQ Summit today (24 May), Andy Day, chief data officer at Sainsbury’s, said the grocer is moving to a business strategy where data was incorporated into the heart of the business.

As such, an upcoming recruitment advertising campaign will target the tech world by reaffirming Sainsbury’s commitment to data. The advertising campaign will contain messages such as “Data will power and shape every business decision” and “Data is everywhere at Sainsbury’s.”

Read more: Sainsbury’s boss warns of even more growth for Aldi and Lidl in 2017

Day explained: “We are changing the advertising we use for recruitment as it’s important we compete for data talent with the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

“Tech people tend to think those three are the most exciting places to work, but Sainsbury’s has so much more data facets to its business – from shoppers and farms to Argos – and that makes us far more interesting to work for. We want to tell that story more effectively.”

Formerly chief data officer at News UK, Day joined Sainsbury’s last August, with the big four supermarket creating the role especially for him. And Day said his primary goal is to make the Sainsbury’s board “talk the analytics language”.

He said he has achieved this in part by creating a data and analytics centre of excellence internally, moving 60 colleagues into this new team. Sainsbury’s also now has a data lab dedicated to tech innovation.

Day believes there are fresh opportunities to use data to assist with everything from improving lettuce growing yields for farmers to ensuring they create the best possible tasting milk.

He concluded: “We want to make everything better through analytics and to plant that seed across the entire business. Data needs to become the internal catchphrase.”

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