#MarketingExcellenceAwards highlight: FairPrice reaffirms social retailer role amidst pandemic

Working with Golin Singapore, NTUC FairPrice took home the gold for Excellence in Communication and Public Relations at this year’s Marketing Excellence Awards.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020, when Singapore raised its disease outbreak response system condition to Orange, demand for daily essentials such as toilet paper, instant noodles and rice saw a surge by as much as five times compared to the week before.

The sudden increase resulted in a bottleneck of deliveries to stores and cause a temporary shortage of products in stores and online. The announcement also caused a panic buying situation, which inadvertently hindered certain groups of people from acquiring daily essentials for themselves.

Following this, the government announced the start of the circuit breaker period (7 April to 1 June 2020), where Singaporeans were given a stay-at-home order in order to cope with the rising number of Covid-19 cases.

Challenge

While supermarkets were allowed to remain open, FairPrice saw a gap in which the vulnerable, especially seniors had difficulties acquiring food for themselves. Additionally, with the disruption of the supply chain amidst globally, Singaporeans were also concerned that prices of certain items will be subjected to price fluctuations as the demand for food and grocery products outstripped supply.

To reaffirm FairPrice’s commitment as a social retailer, especially amidst the current Covid-19 pandemic, FairPrice’s key objectives were to:

- Make essentials accessible and available

- Provide for the vulnerable and needy

- Managing cost of living for Singaporeans

Solution

FairPrice introduced three initiatives from the period of March to June 2020 as part of a holistic campaign to address top of mind concerns of the nation amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. A strategic public relations campaign, complemented with social media activations were conducted to inform, address concerns and encourage community participation.

1. Priority Shopping Hour (March 2020): To improve safe distancing measures for vulnerable segments of the community - including members of the Pioneer Generation (PG), persons with disabilities (PWDs) and pregnant women - when they shop for their daily necessities, FairPrice implemented the Priority Shopping hour at all FairPrice stores.

Priority Shopping Hour will take place every Monday during the first hour of each FairPrice store’s normal operating hours. A secondary intent of the initiative is also to allay concerns among seniors and the less mobile of concerns of not being able to purchase groceries following reports of stockpiling and panic buying, leaving shelves empty of high demand items like toilet paper, rice and vegetables. This dedicated hour will allow seniors and the vulnerable to shop at ease without having to jostle with the crowd.

2. FairPrice on Wheels (April 2020): FairPrice launched “FairPrice on Wheels”, a community initiative to enhance accessibility of daily essential at selected mature estates with a higher concentration of low-income seniors through specially outfitted grocery vans.

This initiative was implemented during the national Circuit Breaker initiative, following reports that there was a growing concern that seniors, especially less-privileged seniors who also did not have adequate family support, were unable to get groceries. Diminished support from volunteers and social service organisations during the circuit breaker period also exacerbated the problem.

To help alleviate the issue, “FairPrice on Wheels” grocery vans looked to provide basic grocery essentials right to the doorstep of seniors who needed them the most. The items the vans carried included a targeted range of rice, bread, instant noodles, cooking oil, canned food, toiletries, fruits and vegetables.

In all, five vans were deployed to 11 locations across Singapore, mainly in mature HDB estates. This initiative also draw inspiration from the “loti chia” or “bread trucks” of yesteryear which seniors could identify with and thereby enhance engagement. Break trucks used to ply the streets in Singapore, serving residential districts that did not have nearby access to grocery stores.

3. House brand price freeze (June 2020): Over the years, the FairPrice house brand range of products, which is priced at least 10% cheaper compared to leading brands, has helped defray daily expenses and provided good quality everyday essentials for Singaporeans.

Driven by its social mission to do well in order to do good for the community, FairPrice remains committed to moderate the cost of living in Singapore - especially during times of crises. To further extend the support for Singaporeans amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, FairPrice extended the price freeze of 100 of the most popular housebrand everyday essentials.

Execution

To reach out to the target audience and relevant stakeholders, FairPrice engaged all the mainstream media titles in Singapore to share more about the initiatives. Press releases were also used to update relevant stakeholders, such as customers, partners and FairPrice staff members, on the initiatives.

FairPrice also pitched for thought leadership interviews with local and regional broadcast titles to further put forth FairPrice as an industry leader, and urging relevant stakeholders and retailers to further support Singaporeans during the pandemic.

To complement traditional media outreach, FairPrice also reached out to the target audience through social media campaigns and social media marketing, to inform, engage and drive participation over the Circuit Breaker and post Circuit Breaker period.

Through social media posts featuring product highlights, recipe creations using FairPrice house brand products and updates on the initiatives, FairPrice reached out to followers to seed key messages from various campaigns in a lifestyle-centric manner.

Beyond media outreach, FairPrice also tapped into its influencer advocate programme, FairPrice Insiders, to share more about the price freeze initiative through a creative kit drop.

The creative kit consists of items that are included in the 100 products that will be on price freeze until 31 December 2020. The kit served to encourage FairPrice Insiders to use the products include to create their favourite home recipes, and to share with their followers about the housebrand range that is available across all FairPrice stores islandwide.

Result

The initiative saw more than 100 pieces of coverage across tier one mainstream titles such as The Straits Times, The Business Times, Channel NewsAsia, TODAY.

The campaign reached over 100 million and key message pull-through was over 73% positive. The initiative was well-received by the target audience, with many social sentiments commending the various initiative that helped moderate the cost of living and bring daily essentials closer to the vulnerable members of the community.