Tesco, a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer, hopes to deliver brand growth in the long term by investing in shaping insights to fuel a strategy of brand altruism.
The retailer developed “The Helpfulness Platform”, which is a calendar of insight mining into British life, and the team conducted daily social monitoring. This was done alongside weekly “State of the Nation” reports based on YouGov data, UK news stories, local news coverage, and Reddit subgroups.
Through this, Tesco uncovered a series of consumer insights, from compassion for pubs hit by enforced closures and anxiety about socializing post-lockdown to the prohibitive cost of essentials like sun cream and concerns about pet wellbeing on returning to the office. As such, the retail giant introduced a series of “caring acts”. It included a campaign that encouraged shoppers to pop to their local for a drink and a 20% saving on sun cream, as well as discounts on hygiene essentials and pet toys.
Tesco believes this strategy would be fruitful. It improved its net sentiment score by 32.4 points to 21%, while its comms led to an 8% year-on-year increase on YouGov BrandIndex. In the last decade, the retail giant has digitally transformed their customer experience, business model, and operating model through investments. It has invested in technology to develop an omnichannel customer experience in an effort to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly digitized UK grocery landscape.
