#MarketingExcellenceAwards highlight: FairPrice goes the Xtra mile to connect with consumers

Taking home the gold for Excellence in Launch / Re-launch Marketing and bronze for Excellence in Media Strategy this year is FairPrice Xtra and Havas Media despite the retail landscape facing unprecedented structural disruptions.

These unprecedented structural disruptions come in many shapes such as technology, intensifying competition, shifting customer habits or format convergence could trigger domino effect. The brand knew that to stand out, it needed to rethink retail by creating memorable customer experiences, blending best of physical and digital worlds.

With FairPrice Xtra @ Vivocity, which opened its doors in August 2020, the team looked to offer a new take on traditional brick-and-mortar shopping. The store featured new retail concepts like a food preparation service and in-store vegetable harvesting, bicycle and luggage repair services, as well as a dedicated play area for children.

Challenge

In crafting the campaign, FairPrice Xtra needed to tackle a few objectives by deeply understanding the needs, pain points and journeys of its customers so as to create personalised customer engagement. The team had to use these insights and layer it with the right technology to create memorable and integrated customer experience  and of course manage physical and digital assets seamlessly to amplify impact.

Strategy

In line with its objectives, the team developed a marketing strategy comprised of three strategic pillars:

1. Xtra customer centricity: moving away from a traditional “one size fits all” approach to a “segment based” campaign, namely young families, millennials and couples

2. Xtra phygital: Delivering an integrated campaign that blends the best of physical and digital worlds

3. Xtra experience: Ensuring we cover all paid, owned and earned touchpoints to optimize the customer experience Xtra Customer Centricity + Xtra Phygital + Xtra Experience = 1 Xtra-Ordinary campaign

Titled “Something Xtra for everyone”,  a campaign was incorporated an integrated through-the-line media outreach and amplification strategy across paid, owned and earned touchpoints.

Execution

The comprehensive execution plan across paid, owned and earned channels were decided upon:

Digital films showcased the unique shopping experience the store provides to customers across 3 key segments – families, millennials and couples.

• • Xtra bond: Featuring a family at the store’s indoor hydroponic farms and station where they can grind almonds and churn out nut butter on the spot.
• • Xtra fun: Featuring a group of millennials enjoying Singapore’s first reverse beer technology and taking selfies against the backdrop of the iconic pink ice cream truck.
• • Xtra special: Featuring a couple at the dine-in area where customers can pick their choice of seafood or meat cuts and have them cooked to eat in the store.

The videos were distributed via Youtube, social and programmatic platforms and auto-optimised based on best performing version.

Meanwhile, digital OOH locations were carefully selected against the key segments with customised creatives around the vicinity of Vivocity as well as competitive stores. There was also a strategic placement of advertisement at the Mega Screen at Level 1 of Vivocity to direct traffic to the store.

Working with influencer network agencies Kobe and Gushcloud, the team identified influencers who personified its customer profiles with sizeable social followers. They were given a tour of the store and encouraged to make Instagram posts based on which section appeals to them most. This ensured an authentic, real and believable tone of voice.

Content was also developed to sustain the campaign across social platforms, highlighting the various zones in the store, offers and food and health tips. This content was also repurposed for in-store digital screens and shoppers were encouraged to tag the brand in their Xtra Moments posts with the hashtag #SomethingXtraForEveryone. Store opening specials ran on Facebook retargeting audiences who have viewed our digital videos to drive stronger call to action.

Meanwhile the storefront was used to strengthen shopper relationships with a brand and its products, reinforcing customer relevancy. Leveraging on “phygital” technology allowed FairPrice Xtra and partner brands to create engaging customer experiences around need states. Product narratives and pictorials via in-store digital screens at strategic shopping zone and on product bays to inspire customer trial.

Customers who saw the digital videos online were also retargeted with tactical offers to drive stronger call to action to either visit the store or purchase the product online.

Results

The campaign over delivered on every account with over 500k video views and engagement of over 745k. The influencer Outreach resulted in over 584k views and more than 25k views. More than 50,000 store visits were attributed to paid media PR coverage.