Food Basics marketing campaign promises it all

Metro is promising it all in its first mass advertising campaign for Ontario discount brand Food Basics.

The campaign is promoting the Big Brands Savings Event, which features deep discounts on three to six big brands each week until Feb. 14. From Jan. 18 to 24, for example, 796 mL cans of Campbell’s Habitant Pea Soup were $0.88 and 450 g Black Diamond Cheddar slices were on for $1.97.

The savings event, a first for Food Basics, is designed to draw in customers with a promise to help them save money during a financially challenging time of year for many, said Rick Smith, director of marketing for Food Basics.

“Shoppers' behaviours change in January after they have gone through a fairly aggressive spending period leading up to Christmas,” he said. “We want to make sure that people don’t forget about Food Basics when they are looking to save money in January.”

The TV commercial opens with a series of product shots and a voiceover explaining that at Food Basics you don’t have to make a choice, you can have it all: fresh fruit, a nice cut of meat at the right price. Cut to a young boy playing soccer and a girl removing skates: “But it’s not just food I want, it’s quality of life,” says the voiceover, before closing with the Food Basics tagline, “Always more for less” and a call out for the savings event.

The intended message is that by shopping at Food Basics, customers can afford to do other things for themselves and their families.

“We’ve been talking this way now for about a year and a half,” said Smith. “We don’t want to feel like they are compromising when they are shopping at Food Basics, we want them to feel like they can have it all,” he said.

Metro will open its 130th Food Basics store Jan. 25 in Bradford.

Metro ran some small, local TV in 2007 but had never run province wide spots before, said Smith. “We wanted to get our brand message out to the customers across the province and television was the natural choice.”

Aside from TV, advertising to support the event is running on digital, radio and social media. “We are promoting the event quite heavily within our Facebook feed and also with promoted posts throughout the period,” said Smith. And of course, the event is being promoted in the cornerstone grocery communications, the flyer. Digital is slowly making inroads but the flyer remains the primary channel for communicating with Food Basics customers, said Smith.

The TV commercial is running on most major networks targeting males and females 18+ though the social communications will be more focused on female shoppers.