Tesco Marketing Strategy

By John Dudovskiy
May 20, 2016

Currently, Tesco marketing strategy aims to regain the trust of stakeholders to the brand. The company is refocusing on “Every Little Helps” strapline to strengthen its core traditional competitive advantage in the marketplace. Certain elements of the marketing communication mix such as print and media advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences and public relations are used by the retail chain to communicate this message to customers.

Advertising

Tesco marketing strategy makes an extensive use of print and media advertising systematically as a tested channel to send marketing communicate message to current and potential consumers. It is important to note that although Tesco has decreased its advertising budget in 2015 compared to previous years as a part of its massive cost-saving initiatives (see figure below), the efficiency of its print and media advertising has increased. This has been achieved via application of marketing differentiation. For example, during Christmas period, the retail chain eschewed an emotional campaign for humour using the family of characters, played by Ruth Jones and Ben Miller, it had introduced earlier in the year.[1]

Tesco Marketing Strategy

Changes in Tesco advertising budget

Occasionally, Tesco print and media advertising contains valuable advises on cooking or home styling. For example, company recently “released reactive print ads around the Great British Bake Off, with a “bake it or fake it” theme. One page shows what ingredients someone can buy to make the creations shown on TV, the other page shows what they can buy instead.”[2]

Sales Promotion

Various forms of sales promotions play an integral role within Tesco marketing strategy. The supermarket chain facilitates sales promotions in the following formats:

  1. Clubcard. Customers collect 1 point for each GBP 1 spent in Tesco. Several times a year customers receive statements and and vouchers equal to the value of points they have saved.
  1. Free gifts. The supermarket chain offers free gifts such as Buy-One-Get-One-Free promotions frequently to boost the sales of specific range of products.
  1. Point of sale materials. This type of promotion is usually conducted with the cooperation with manufacturers in a way that they may supply with posters, display stands and other point of sale promotional materials…

Tesco PLC Report contains more detailed discussion of Tesco marketing strategy. The report also illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis and McKinsey 7S Model on Tesco. Moreover, the report contains analysis of Tesco’s leadership and organizational structure and discusses the issues of corporate social responsibility.

Tesco PLC Report

[1] Vizard, S. (2016) “How the Tesco brand recovered from crisis” Marketing Week, Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/04/18/how-the-tesco-brand-bounced-back-from-crisis/

[2] Magee, K. (2015) “Inside Tesco’s new ad strategy” Campaign, Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/inside-tescos-new-ad-strategy/1368667



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