Aldi's Failed Social Media Campaign: Communication Plan

In a Group Of 3-4, You Are Required To Prepare a Draft Of Digital Marketing Communications  Plan. The Presentation Must Fully Detail And Justify Proposals With Clear Underpinning By Academic Theory And Research.

Discount retail supermarket chain Aldi in recent times has been facing severe criticism after it contested a social media influencer to spend only £25 to make sustenance of her entire family which comprises of 4 persons for seven days. This campaign has received a failed grade and viewed as completely insensitive in the eyes of many UK communication experts (BBC News 2019). As per reports, the supermarket giant in the UK has shown high incompetence to offer a viable justification in order to explain this sensitive issue that is food poverty (Butler 2016). However, the primary motive of the company and its campaign has been to show ways in which individuals can make good amount of savings on their grocery purchase. The campaign has been covered by wide ranging media experts and social media influencers. The following report will provide a brief of Aldi’s failed campaign and key reasons behind its backlash. Additionally, it will provide a general communication plan with a time schedule and financial analysis as well as identify and categorize its key tasks as well as responsibilities in order to make resolution to this situation.

• The products endorsed in the campaign #poorest day challenge sourced goods from renowned British producers and food manufacturers.
• Consumers have viewed Aldi’s products to have greater availability as compared to its chief competitor of similar German discount chain Lidl (Schmid et al. 2018)
• Customers in the UK have recognized the major brand value of Aldi owing to its wide range of valuable products

• Aldi lacks a friendly user website and mainly contains unappealing designs and logos.
• The company has an outmoded social media unit which fails to post attractive and thought provoking insights in consistent manner.
• Aldi social media unit shows incapacity of creating space for customers in order to gain idea of any future endorsements.

• The ecommerce sales in the UK have been witnessing substantial growth from 6.2% last year to around 19.5% in 2020 (Brandes and Brandes 2019).
• Social media marketing has been seen as an important tool to direct businesses in order to establish brand awareness.
• Social media marketing strategies has refurbished previously restricted marketing communication between brands as well as customer base.

• Brexit will have significant impact on retailers as well as consumers in addition to the price of supermarket food.
• Competitors such as Amazon which in the past have altered the ecommerce purchase behaviour of clients.

The concept of the failed campaign of Aldi did not initially initiate a wrong message. However, the phrase and framing of challenge has exhibited high insensitivity and lack of consideration. One of the key issues behind its failure has been that it involved a social media influencer to take active participation. The issue of food poverty which Aldi endorsed for its food campaign has made highly unconstructive impact on its clientele and wide range social media influencers. The campaign which Aldi encouraged the customers to use hash tag

#AldiPoorestDayChallenge paid very insignificant consideration to the population of the country which has been struggling with food insecurity. As per reports, Aldi showed lack of social accountability and failed to draw importance to the 10.7% of people in the world who have been suffering from severe undernourishment in 2016 (Gant 2020).

 

Furthermore, another key issue behind Aldi’s social media campaign failure has been its incompetent social and PR team executives. According to De Souza and Ferris (2015), the PR and social media units of one of the leading UK discount organization Aldi show every poor association with the social realities. According to reports, Aldi has made few major brand biases and did not receive any criticism in recent past. Although, Aldi needs to build up their overall domain expert in order to align with its competitors, the failed campaign in 2019 has completely disrupted its social media base. In the view of Brandes and Brandes (2019), it is imperative for major brands like Aldi to obtain extensive knowledge and broad perspective on current global issues and essentially apprehend the communities through a sustainable approach. Additionally, brands along with social media partners must take significant consideration and time to execute due attentiveness of information provided on any influencers’ page and of viewers. Such diligence must be exhibited in order to ensure successful endorsement of brands in a reliable manner and shared with suitable target groups.

Overall Communication Plan

To make resolutions for the disaster social media campaign, Aldi must introduce another social media campaign with robust and diligent message. The campaign can involve the entire family and further make considerable savings for the upcoming month. The campaign can be called #Aldifamilychallenge where participants can include their family members and spend up to £ 40 and can consume exceptional range of nutritional food items from the wide range of Aldi dietary products. In this campaign, participants will be asked to share their innovative and exceptional food item recipes and the winner will be declared based on its innovation and uniqueness (Davey 2019). At this stage, Aldi in contrast to its previous social media food campaign ‘Poorest day challenge’, will offer a share of price in the name of the winner to any charitable domain of the winner’s preference. Such an approach in line with the company’s CSR approach for poverty alleviation can be appreciated and acknowledged in the social media platform (Gant 2020).

The primary aim of this strategy for Aldi should be customer awareness and engagement.

This campaign must aim to surpass the new law of creating social value and significances and act as a driving force in contributing to poverty alleviation. Furthermore, the objective of the strategy is to support charity initiatives in local communities which can further produce good determination within the community.

As per Waldron, Fisher and Navis (2015), with noteworthy competition from Amazon many retail chains like Aldi and Lidl in the UK are aiming to follow Albertsons’ leads and take a “People, Planet and Profit” approach. This approach is essential in attracting as well as retaining socially mindful clienteles and personnel. However, at this juncture it is vital to note that with the understanding that programs which show brand support have significant level of integrity and are associated with the brand’s standards and culture, there cannot be any shortcoming in developing the programs apparent to customers (Waldron, Fisher and Navis 2015). While taking into consideration Aldi’s online as well as offline retail messaging, the company must not make any mistake on social media and should take utmost advantage of it in endorsing to their causes in addition to their participation.

Poorest Day Challenge- The previous failed social media campaign (Poorest day Challenge) aimed to direct its customers on increasing their savings. It further developed a customers’ idea of brand value particularly towards Aldi rather than emphasizing on its primary stakeholders that is its clientele.

SMART Objectives

New Campaign-Aldi family challenge will chiefly develop its clientele perception of value in the direction of its wide range of nutritional products and its brand awareness. Furthermore, the newly developed challenge will aim to guide families of middle income range in the UK to maintain a balanced and fit lifestyle by only consuming dietary products in reasonable prices offered by Aldi (De Souza and Ferris 2015).

Goal- To increase brand awareness of Aldi by 15% within 2 weeks through customer engagement and trades by 15% via digital marketing strategies during the Aldi family challenge campaign week.

Specific	Measurable	Attainable	Realistic	Time
It will chiefly target parents of the age group 25-40 years with household earning of £22000 – 30000	Success of 15% brand awareness and sales	The goal is attainable as most of the customers of the targeted age group and income range depend on Aldi’s food product range for their weekly and monthly grocery purchase.	This goal is realistic as Aldi’s brand management team is aiming to increase customer awareness and sales through client involvement after the recent brand reputation decline due to the failed social campaign (Ko, Phau and Aiello 2016). This goal  with significant level of involvement of customers with associated goals with top line marketing team agendas are linked with brand awareness.	2 weeks

Facebook- Facebook has recently use entered the video branding.

Key message- #Come and join a healthy cooking competition with your fam!!

Brand executives must upload a cooking video of a family which will serve as a unique on users’ newsfeed which they are not expecting while going through their news feed (Godey et al. 2016). This will promote the brand and its idea of the campaign. The Facebook video will also gain a larger thumbnail in comparison to other social media platforms.

The comments must be checked and acknowledged to keep a track on the number of viewers and raking of its feed in that week.

Aldi should hire brand ambassadors like Jamie Oliver or other renowned food bloggers. These ambassadors will record their healthy cooking video with their respective family members by using exclusive dietary food products of Aldi discount chain. The video should not simply focus on process of cooking but display and endorse the range of Aldi food products used and speak on their nourishment level. In addition to this, the video must shed light on importance of poverty alleviation and the organization’s CSR initiative towards it through this campaign (Kim et al. 2016). The video must be concise and make use of catchy phrases to draw attention of its viewers and increase the rate of views amongst other viewers.

Key Message- Even you can do it with Aldi

The mail with this subject line must be sent to all the registered clientele with their names mentioned on specific date and time -

• Time - 12 pm GMT
• Days - Wednesday-Sunday

The e-mail should also include examples of assured complementary gifts and offers on products in order to increase the rate of footfall on weekends on its offline store and increasing sales via ecommerce (Arrigo 2018).

The key messages through these two platforms will successfully link to its purpose and strategy. The videos will provide consumers a reason to connect with Aldi and attain the idea of its novel image of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Key Brand Awareness Messages

Determine Brand Awareness Goals- The primary aim of this strategy for Aldi should be customer awareness and engagement.

This campaign must aim to surpass the new law of creating social value and significances and act as a driving force in contributing to poverty alleviation. Furthermore, the objective of the strategy is to support charity initiatives in local communities which can further produce good determination within the community.

Brand Awareness Surveys- Surveys will be sent to the email addresses of customers purchasing Aldi dietary products and enrolling name for the campaign. Generic questions will be asked in the survey such as “when you think of nutritious food items, which brand come to your mind?”

The findings of the survey can be used to set the marketing strategy and refine Aldi’s brand awareness strategies.

Social Listening and Reach- Another way to quantity brand awareness is to track ways in which the brand is mentioned in social media channels. Tools like branded hash tags can be effective in increasing the brand awareness of Aldi.

Develop a launch communications plan- Establish interaction with the consumers and then use roadmap for execution.

• Proper outline of key messages sent on social media
• To make presence where consumers are purchasing products
• Secure sufficient budget- Consumer brands have diverse requirements as compared to B2B brands. Aldi needs to be certain while spending accurately in order to create the prominence it needs to accomplish the goal of the campaign.

Campaign	In-house expense	Response	Return by media
Content creation (Graphics, Video)	£900 (10%)		£1500 (13%)
Social Advertising (Facebook and Instagram)	£1500 (17%)	35%	£2400 (26%)
Social Engagement	£800 (9%)	22%	£1300 (11%)
Tools Monitoring Scheduling Analytics	£2500 (28%)		£2650 (22.5%)
Campaign 1	£3300 (36%)		£3900 (33%)
Total	£9000		£11750

Conclusion

To conclude, brands like Aldi with social media partners must take significant consideration and time to implement due focus of information provided on any influencers’ page and of audiences.

References

Arrigo, E., 2018. Social media marketing in luxury brands. Management Research Review.

BBC News, 2019. Aldi Hopes To Ease Any No-Deal Brexit Impact. [online] BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/49710818/aldi-boss-says-retailer-is-working-to-ease-any-no-deal-brexit-impact> [Accessed 20 March 2020].

Brandes, D. and Brandes, N., 2019. Bare Essentials: The ALDI Story. Linde Verlag GmbH.

Butler, S., 2016. Aldi And Lidl Hike Milk And Banana Prices As Pound's Fall Bites. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/22/aldi--lidl-hike-milk-banana-prices-pound> [Accessed 20 March 2020].

Davey, J., 2019. Aldi Focused On British Sales With £1 Billion Growth Plan. [online] U.S. Available at: <https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-aldi-uk-results/aldi-focused-on-british-sales-with-1-billion-growth-plan-idUKKBN1W10ES> [Accessed 20 March 2020].

De Souza, I.M. and Ferris, S.P., 2015. Social media marketing in luxury retail. International Journal of Online Marketing (IJOM), 5(2), pp.18-36.

De Souza, I.M. and Ferris, S.P., 2015. Social media marketing in luxury retail. International Journal of Online Marketing (IJOM), 5(2), pp.18-36.

Diddi, S. and Niehm, L.S., 2016. Corporate social responsibility in the retail apparel context: Exploring consumers' personal and normative influences on patronage intentions. Journal of Marketing Channels, 23(1-2), pp.60-76.

Gant, M., 2020. Aldi’S ‘Poorest Day’ Shopping Challenge Sparks Backlash. [online] TODAY.com. Available at: <https://www.today.com/food/aldi-s-poorest-day-shopping-challenge-sparks-backlash-t172918> [Accessed 20 March 2020].

Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R., 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.

Heery, E., Hann, D. and Nash, D., 2017. The Living Wage campaign in the UK. Employee Relations.

Heydari, J. and Mosanna, Z., 2018. Coordination of a sustainable supply chain contributing in a cause-related marketing campaign. Journal of Cleaner Production, 200, pp.524-532.

Kim, S., Park, G., Lee, Y. and Choi, S., 2016. Customer emotions and their triggers in luxury retail: Understanding the effects of customer emotions before and after entering a luxury shop. Journal of Business Research, 69(12), pp.5809-5818.

Ko, E., Phau, I. and Aiello, G., 2016. Luxury brand strategies and customer experiences: Contributions to theory and practice. Journal of Business Research, 69(12), pp.5749-5752.

Schmid, S., Dauth, T., Kotulla, T. and Orban, F., 2018. Aldi and Lidl: from Germany to the rest of the world. In Internationalization of Business (pp. 81-98). Springer, Cham.

Waldron, T.L., Fisher, G. and Navis, C., 2015. Institutional entrepreneurs' social mobility in organizational fields. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(1), pp.131-149.