Sainsbury’s announcement last week that Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
had lost its position as lead agency on its supermarket business after
20 years has been seen by many in the industry as a long time coming.
The news was first made public last Friday by Marketing Online
(www.marketing.haynet.com).But there has been constant speculation for
the past two years that such a switch was likely to happen.
Sainsbury’s confirmed that M&C Saatchi would now take over its TV
advertising account, while AMV would be retained to work on press
advertising. Sources at AMV believe that they may have a chance to pull
the business back after six months.
The decision to move to M&C was made following a presentation of ads
created by both agencies a few weeks ago. The Saatchi brothers’ agency
now takes over the largest slice of Sainsbury’s business. The company
spent pounds 23m on advertising in 1997-1998, from a total budget of
pounds 42m, and is the highest spending supermarket advertiser in the
UK.
Moray MacLennan, joint chief executive of M&C Saatchi, says: ’There are
only a handful of icon brands in the UK when it comes to advertising and
marketing and Sainsbury’s is one of them. So we are excited and
privileged to be part of their future plans.’
M&C Saatchi has been rumoured to be courting the account ever since it
picked up the Sainsbury’s Bank work in 1996. While the Reward Card has
served Sainsbury’s well, the TV advertising from AMV had struggled to
come up with a strong alternative to the ’celebrity recipes’ of the
early 90s. Then there was the fiasco of ’Value to Shout About’, the
AMV-created campaign starring John Cleese, which some believe has caused
long-term damage to the brand. It proved a turn-off for staff, viewers
and shoppers.
It was voted 1998’s most irritating TV ad in Marketing’s annual poll of
1000 viewers and Sainsbury’s staff also complained about how they
appeared in the ads, leading to them being re-cut.
Sainsbury’s group chief executive Dino Adriano admitted in January that
the campaign had adversely affected profits. Although he claimed it had
achieved its objective in persuading customers that Sainsbury’s was good
value, he said customers had simply ’cherry picked’ special offers.
Sainsbury’s denies ’Value to Shout About’ is the reason for the agency
change. A spokesman says: ’This has not happened as a result of ’Value
to Shout About’. The John Cleese ads were very successful; they brought
more people through the door. We did issue a poor trading statement at
Christmas but there was a general downturn in the industry. The reason
we have appointed M&C Saatchi to do the TV is because we are looking for
new ways to communicate our offer.’
However, there is no getting away from the fact that ’Value to Shout
About’ was viewed widely as a flop. And that it was M&C Saatchi that
Sainsbury’s turned to for inspiration. The M&C ’ads’ shown to
supermarket managers at a conference last month were in fact internal
videos designed to boost low staff morale after Christmas.
AMV’s hold on the Sainsbury’s account has also been in question since
the arrival of marketing director Kevin McCarten in 1995 from
Kingfisher.
A marketer who describes himself as a ’numbers man’, McCarten was quoted
last July as saying that the recipe ads had ’perhaps been too upscale in
terms of recipes and the type of people we used’. McCarten chose to
focus on price - the result being ’Value to Shout About’.
According to insiders, his traditional approach clashed with that of
AMV. The relationship also began to founder after the retirement of
David Abbott, AMV’s strongest link with Sainsbury’s. But the reaction
from many in the industry this week is that although the Cleese ads were
dreadful, AMV has been made a scapegoat for the Sainsbury’s marketing
problems.
The City is certainly critical of McCarten, who was brought in to turn
around Sainsbury’s fortunes, but has so far failed.
Supermarket Market share
Tesco 24.1%
Sainsbury’s 18.9%
Asda 14.8%
Somerfield 9.6%
Source: Taylor Nelson Sofres
.jpg)
.jpeg)
