Sainsbury: A Digital-First Essay In The Supermarket Industry.

The brand aims to offer delicious and great quality food at competitive prices in order to hold strong customer service experiences (Sainsburys.co.uk, 2022).

For instance, the threats of the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced Sainsbury to become a "digital-first business" as, throughout the crisis period, 87% of their sales have been made online (Stevens 2020). Out of such bold innovation plans, it has been possible for Sainsbury to indulge in direct competition with big market players in the supermarket industry.

For instance, the higher inflation rate has pushed Sainsdy’s product prices high, but the brand has endeavoured to improve its value proposition (Conchie 2021). In order to revamp their profitability, Sainsbury focused more on online channels for sales rather than offline platforms.

It has also shown Sainsbury’s strong acquisition of technological skills and digital platforms, especially in the e-commerce segment.

As a result, it has become possible for Sainsbury to hold resilience in the technological evolution across the UK whereas online sales have helped them to know customers better. For instance, Sainsbury has taken special care towards its intellectual properties by eliminating TM Clubcard that was infringing the brand’s property rights (Pilcher 2019). Besides that, Sainsbury has become more CSR-centric when it comes to controlling climate-based factors.

In this way, Sainsbury deals with macro-environmental situations to keep itself on consumers' priority lists. 

The effectiveness in achieving the goals has to be measured. Sainsbury mainly offers products like grocery items associated with food and beverage products. Additionally, Sainsbury’s services include online channels through which customers can easily book their orders which are promised to be delivered at their doorstep at a faster pace. On the other hand, in order to know what products or services Sainsbury offers more clearly, it is important to know who the target audience of Sainsbury's is.

In terms of Geographic segment, customers can find Sainsbury stores beyond the UK boundaries. In countries like Scotland, Ireland, Belfast and the North East US, Sainsbury operates its stores for shipping healthy food and grocery products due to its heavy demand in such locations. From the demographic viewpoints, Sainsbury targets family units, especially mothers to offer them healthier and reasonable products in bulk. That is why Sainsbury has been considered as an effective brand that has the highest level of consumer satisfaction compared to its major competitor Tesco (Rohwer and Topi? 2019). Based on this, Sainsbury has obtained a competitive positioning strategy from the viewpoints of their business and customers both.

On the contrary, Sainsbury faces challenges in sales performance where it experienced a drop of 1.4% in sales in general merchandise stores in 2018 (Mua and Anyieni 2019). Thus, Sainsbury has shifted its focus more on healthy offerings which can be taken under consideration as one of its USPs.

Sainsbury has around 600 supermarkets and 800 convenience stores from where buyers can purchase products easily. Ali (2018) noticed that Sainsbury has a good distribution network but it often faces competitive pressures.

Sainsbury uses both traditional and digital media both for advertisements where they include mediums like TV, newspaper, radio, social media and billboards. However, it has been effective to use the 4Ps of the marketing mix in order to assess Sainsbury's efforts in building its business profile from a customer's shoe.

In order to be competitive, Sainsbury and ASDA which is another UK-based supermarket brand decided to merge through which they could acquire market shares. On the contrary, they have been alleged for pushing up the product prices as their £7bn deal threatened consumers to have limited shopping choices of poor quality products (Wood 2019). Hence, their deal was blocked by CMA who investigated the matter more closely so that customers’ service experience could remain resilient and consistent. Fansi and Nkwantchoa (2020) opined that the convergence between Sainsbury and ASDA was intended to develop a complementary network including more than 2,800 grocery stores.

Their plan did not work as the mission of the deal was not suitable for Sainsbury’s actual business values. Out of this plan, Sainsbury had to deal with customers and its suppliers unethically which could lead the business to make a negative impression on customers. In order to rationalise their deal, Ansoff Matrix as a core marketing model can be aligned with this situation. Through the aid of the Ansoff Matrix, it becomes easier to generalise the available information regarding current market situations (Kukartsev et al. 2019). Therefore, a company like Sainsbury can ensure efficient ways to develop their business concerning available products or services, resources and capabilities.

Based on the Ansoff Matrix, it can be presumed that Sainsbury sought to consider market development strategy through their merger with ASDA. Sainsbury aimed at increasing its consumer baseline by gaining a decisive edge on its rivals followed by the merger deal. On the flip side, it failed not because of downgrading the product quality but also for causing harm to the UK grocery market where customers could have attained fragile experiences. Thus, it is believed that executing marketing strategies can bring positive returns if the visualised products or services can offer actual benefits to the customers rather than misleading them. 

Marketing contains a detailed and comprehensive process that helps a company like Sainsbury to realise the target segment. Therefore, they gear up their potential to come up with internal and external strengths and weaknesses. The strong research and innovative skills also lead Sainsbury to make decisions based on which they motivate their growth to achieve goals successfully. Over the period, Sainsbury as a strong, independent and empowered brand has developed multiple tools and technologies for promoting its serviceable content. Sainsbury has employed Stephen Fry who is the voice of its advertisement in 2021 during the Christmas event (Thegrocer.co.uk 2021).

The campaign was mainly designed by Wieden+Kennedy which are a London-based agency. On the other hand, the voice-over artist was employed to warm up the sentimental value of Sainsbury's tableau. In 2020, Sainsbury's 'Nicholas the Sweep' campaign was narrated by actor Brian Cox that led the audience to visualise a new origin of Santa. Apart from that, Sainsbury also has developed a Delicious Ad that aims at influencing consumers to have a healthier and better lifestyle. Throughout the marketing projects, Sainsbury tries to influence families to rely on just six-go to recipes that can reflect their sustainable product choices, especially in summers. 

Octaviana and Susilo (2021) noticed that brand campaigns have a significant impact on the process of creating a brand image among the target audience. In that sense, it can be stated that Sainsbury's efforts into diversifying new concepts. The informative content over Sainsbury's promotional video have created its unique identity compared to other market rivals. On the other hand, Sainsbury uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube where they post and upload multiple contents and blogs to make consumers aware of the new arrivals. Currently, Sainsbury has decided to incorporate three key elements of marketing such as Customer service, Crisis control and sales on its online pages for creating a social media buzz. 

References

Ali, H., (2018). What Factors Contribute to Efficient Management of The Supply Chain of Supermarket Within UK Retailers? Case Study?Sainsbury Supermarket PLC Supply Chain.

Conchie, C., 2021. Sainsbury’s to reveal how profits have been hit by supply chain and inflation. [online] The Independent. Available at: <https://www.independent.co.uk/business/sainsbury-s-to-reveal-how-profits-have-been-hit-by-supply-chain-and-inflation-b1947865.html> [Accessed 14 January 2022].

Fansi, Y. and Nkwantchoa, C.A., 2020. Failed corporate mergers–an analysis of buy and hold cumulative returns around merger announcements. Journal of Academic Reviews, 6(1), pp.9-14.

Kukartsev, V.V., Fedorova, N.V., Tynchenko, V.S., Danilchenko, Y.V., Eremeev, D.V. and Boyko, A.A., 2019, August. The analysis of methods for developing the marketing strategies in agribusiness. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 315, No. 2, p. 022107). IOP Publishing.

Mua, L.N. and Anyieni, A., 2019. Merchandizing Practices and Sales Performance of Supermarkets in Nakuru County, Kenya. International Journal of Current Aspects, 3(VI), pp.16-32.

Octaviana, V. and Susilo, D., 2021. Impact of@ RaikuBeauty instagram campaign content on brand image. Jurnal Komunikasi Profesional, 5(3), pp.270-284.

Pilcher, J., 2019. Art, Law and Unstable Corporate Identities. Proceedings of EVA London 2019, pp.288-292.

Rohwer, L. and Topi?, M., 2019. The communication of Corporate–NGO Partnerships: analysis of Sainsbury’s collaboration with Comic Relief. Journal of Brand Management, 26(1), pp.35-48.

Sainsburys.co.uk, 2022. About us. [online] About.sainsburys.co.uk. Available at: <https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us> [Accessed 14 January 2022].

Stevens, B., 2020. Sainsbury's is "now a digital first business" according to analysts - Latest Retail Technology News From Across The Globe - Charged. [online] Latest Retail Technology News From Across The Globe - Charged. Available at: <https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2020/07/01/sainsburys-is-now-a-digital-first-business-according-to-analysts/> [Accessed 14 January 2022].

Thegrocer.co.uk, 2021. Stephen Fry voices Sainsbury’s freeze frame Christmas advert. [online] The Grocer. Available at: <https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/sainsburys/stephen-fry-voices-sainsburys-freeze-frame-christmas-advert/661821.article> [Accessed 14 January 2022].

Wood, Z., 2019. Sainsbury's-Asda merger blocked by competition watchdog. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/25/sainsburys-asda-merger-blocked-by-competition-watchdog> [Accessed 14 January 2022].