For any brand, maintaining a perception of being ‘good value for money’ can be tricky, especially in the current financial climate.
On a mission to promote its value, Boots’ new ‘Savvy Savers’ campaign is designed to show the ways customers can enjoy both value and quality, with a film depicting happy customers showing off their savings in a ‘Snap Your Savings’ photobooth.
Letting customers know “if you’re looking for great deals and great value for money, come to Boots” is at the heart of the latest campaign, explains CMO Pete Markey.
“This is definitely a concerted effort from us to underline our value perceptions that Boots is a great place for values and deals,” he adds.
The campaign supports Boots’ new ‘Best for Less’ deals for January, including 50% off brands such as No7 and Oral-B and essentials from the likes of Dove and Lynx, available for £2 and under.
Boots sees solid growth as customers benefit from ‘strategic focus on value’
Markey explains value for money will be a key theme in Boots’ marketing across the year, as it aims to “build on the momentum from Christmas” focusing on “affordability” and “incredible products”.
Boots recently reported 8.2% year-on-year growth in retail sales for the three months ending 30 November, crediting this to the growth of its loyalty scheme and a strategic focus on value.
The Savvy Savers campaign will run until 11 February across a range of media and will use first-party targeting. In November, Markey spoke to Marketing Week about the “relevance of personalisation”, given 50% of the company’s media spend for its Christmas campaign was focused on first party data through the Advantage Card scheme.
The targeting will reach customers who have purchased low-cost items in specific categories, such as dental care, skincare, haircare, toiletries, or cosmetics within the past year. The campaign will also target shoppers with an average order value of £5 or less.
Through this campaign, Boots is looking for “the deal savvy shoppers”.
“We want to get to more of them and re-engage more of them so they come back and shop with us again,” he says, explaining first-party data is key.
“We use first-party data on an ongoing basis through our loyalty scheme activity, email app notifications and will do more so with the paid media campaign running until February,” Markey adds.
We’re 176-years old this year and we still need people to wake up in the morning and think Boots is the first place they want to go to for health and beauty needs.
Pete Markey, Boots
As part of the campaign, there will be savings of up to half price for Boots Advantage Card members and tailored offers on the Boots app. All year round, Boots Advantage Card offers 10% off Boots brand and tailored offers.
Earlier this month, Boots reported a 3.5% increase in active Advantage Card members, with 700,000 more customers joining the loyalty programme in Q1 – meaning there are now 16.9 million active members.
Markey dubs it as “one of the most popular loyalty schemes on the high street and online”, with Advantage Card holders getting the “cherry on the cake” of personalised deals.
“It should feel like we’re talking to shoppers on an individual level,” says Markey.
“For me, the vision is for even greater personalisation in what we do, and that each experience feels more unique and more tailored to our customers as the year goes on,” he adds.
After prioritising personalisation in the Christmas campaign, Boots has seen “the more relevant the offer, the more engagement”, registering record engagement levels on email and app activity as evidenced in Boots’ strong Black Friday performance.
Staying relevant
Effectiveness will be measured firstly by sales, as the brand assesses which deals landed best, alongside the overall engagement specifically of Boots Advantage card holders.
Alongside this, Markey notes engagement metrics for the brand – including measurements of “confidence” that Boots offers value for money – as key indicators of success.
“We also measure buzz and engagement with the brand. At the end of last year, we saw a real uptick in growth within the under 30 audience,” he says.
According to the Boots CMO, the “hope of the campaign” is to expand the target audience, as the retailer has learnt it can “grow audiences and attract them in with the right content”, for example with beauty campaigns targeted at under 30s. Savvy Savers also tested well with under 30s, says Markey.
As part of the campaign, ‘Best of Beauty’ products will be available from just £3, including brands such as 17 and Natural Collection. This comes after Boots’ “biggest ever beauty campaign” landed in the top 5% of all UK out-of-home ads in Kantar’s database for females and the top 31% for all ads that make people “stop and look”, according to Kantar’s The Works study published in December.
Boots’ beauty sales were up 11% year-on-year for the most recent quarter, as partnerships expanded to stock more than 20 new brands.
For me, the vision is for even greater personalisation in what we do, and that each experience feels more unique and more tailored to our customers as the year goes on.
Pete Markey, Boots
Through Savvy Savers Boots will be pushing both own brand and externally supplied products across a mix of channels, including TV, video-on-demand, digital audio, digital out-of-home, print, YouTube and social media – the idea being to focus on the breadth of products available.
Markey says placements such as 3D billboards used for the beauty campaign last year won’t be commonplace as “if you do it all the time, it doesn’t become special and unique and celebrated”.
“We’ve learnt a lot about the power and the impact of what we did, and a version of it will return at some point. We want to go bigger next time,” adds Markey.
The retailer also trialled 65% new marketing tactics at Christmas, elements of which the CMO explains will be “sprinkled into the Spring and Summer campaign”.
Heading into the rest of the year, Markey says the goal is for the Boots brand to stay “incredibly relevant” in people’s lives.
“We’re 176-years old this year and we still need people to wake up in the morning and think Boots is the first place they want to go to for health and beauty needs,” he says.
Markey explains personalisation and being “relevant, precise and timely” are key elements, as shoppers are “only one click away from another provider”.
“My job is to be the torchbearer in the 176th year and keep running that race, and [take] the brand forward” he concludes.
