Q&A: Sainsbury’s director of loyalty and insight Andrew Mann

Sainsbury’s director of loyalty and insight talks to Marketing Week about how it is using its Jubilee festival to get closer to customers.

Sainsbury's

MW: Why is Sainsbury’s hosting this Jubilee festival and how does it fit into Sainsbury’s brand and marketing strategy?

Andrew Mann: We spend a lot of time listening to our customers and they tell us how they’re feeling and what they want us to do. They’ve just had a horrible winter, they’re worried about the economy, worried about their jobs and what they want is brands they can trust that offer great quality and great prices. That’s why our overall campaign is about Live Well for Less – it lets them have their cake and eat it with great food and fair prices.

This summer is going to be one to remember with the Jubilee, the Euros, the Olympics and Paralympics so what we wanted to do with the Jubilee – the first of those big events is show that we understand what they’re looking for.

MW: Is this part of a changing dynamic in the UK and a different relationship between consumers and supermarkets?

AM: Great brands, and the supermarkets in the UK are great brands, recognise that it’s about building an emotional relationship and making lives easier for [consumers] in lots of different ways.

MW: Will Sainsbury’s do more large-scale festival events as part of helping customers Live Well for Less?

AM: What we’re really focused on doing is listening to our customers, and what they want is to be able to get really great food at fair prices with great service. And they want to be able to live life in a much easier way. That is where we’ve linked [the Jubilee festival] into Live Well for Less because it’s a really simple idea that resonates with our customers. We bring it to life through NPD, through Nectar, through promotions and through events.

It’s not the first time we’ve done an event like this. We ran an event to mark a year to the Paralympics and what we’ve been doing is learning how to run events as a way to get closer to customers. `there’s whole areas [at the events] where people can come and try our food. We are trying to provide something that gives families a good day out and try our great food in stores.

MW: As a sponsor, what does Sainsbury’s have planned around the Paralympics?

AM: I can’t talk about the detail for Paralympics yet, but the Jubilee is the beginning of a campaign we’re running across the whole summer. A lot of our stores have Paralympians living in the local area and we’ll be doing more activity around them. We’re using our stores and running lots of TV ads around the Paralympics and lots of digital and social activity.
We will also be getting a lot of traction around David Beckham who fronts our Paralympic activity.

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