Hearts & Science – Ocado
The pandemic created huge shifts in online shopping behaviour. While Ocado reaped the benefits of this, it faced a big challenge in keeping customers it had gained during lockdown and maintaining growth as behaviours returned to what they were before the pandemic .
As lockdowns eased, category growth levelled off and high top-of-mind awareness was not translating into consideration and new customers. Ocado had to convince shoppers using other supermarkets to switch to its service, but with a media budget a fraction of the size of the competition.
Ocado needed something creative and innovative that could help it stand out from the competition and really dramatise their range and convenience benefits.
Qualitative research identified three key trends which Ocado believed would persist as the UK came out of lockdown: people’s newfound love of cooking from scratch, a heightened demand for convenience shopping, and an exponential increase in usage of QR codes. These drove its inspiring approach and made it easier for people to engage with Ocado.
With this in mind, Ocado partnered with the Guardian’s influential ‘Feast’ magazine, showcasing its range of products, linking Ocado to recipe inspiration and creating a ‘One Stop Recipe Shopping’ experience for the first time in UK publishing history.
They did this by incorporating QR codes that put all the ingredients from a recipe into readers’ Ocado baskets: a brilliantly simple innovation, enabling consumers to buy from Ocado in a completely new way.This partnership enabled Ocado to deeply engage with consumers whilst providing an immediate and easy call to action.
Over one year, Ocado owned 100% of the print and digital advertising inventory for Feast, with 15 weekly recipes from star chefs including Yotam Ottolenghi. Ocado also partnered with the Guardian’s ‘Comfort Eating’ podcast to support the campaign.
The campaign reached over 14 million consumers, with 89% of visits to the product pages from non-Ocado customers. This proved a strong mechanic for both new acquisition and customer retention, with an average conversion rate of 11%, while the Guardian’s recipes were also the most visited content pages on Ocado.com. Importantly, 79% of all people who engaged with the campaign are planning to try Ocado.com for the first time. The podcast was also a huge success, climbing to the top spot of the podcast charts in its first week of release.
[This partnership] brings the best of the Guardian’s estate — paper, online, podcasts, talent — to drive brand and performance results for Ocado with recipes that inspire and populate baskets
James Parnum, head of planning, MediaCom UK
14m
consumers reached
89%
of visits from non-Ocado customers
