M&S TV Advert jibes at Tesco’s Everyday Value, with subtle comparison
Marks and Spencer’s latest TV ad campaign makes a cheeky quality smear at Tesco’s newly rebranded ‘Everyday Value’ products, while pointing to a lesson from the past.
In 2009, M&S ran an ad that made the very direct statement ‘Price checked against Waitrose Essentials. Quality checked by M&S’.
It was intended to promote the value of Marks and Spencer’s Simply Food range, but had an adverse effect. A week after launching the campaign, Waitrose announced a massive 17.1% upsurge in sales, which they directly attributed to M&S’s advert. It seemed the ad actually helped promote awareness, acceptance and adoption of Waitroses own value offering.
This time around, M&S have been careful to take a swipe at Tesco’s.
Without undermining their own quality message with a blunt comparison, the advert cleverly states ‘There are some foods that go on our shopping lists everyday. But that doesn’t mean they should taste everyday. That’s why we’ve introduced the Simply M&S range.’
Simply genius.
Posted on June 14th, 2012
About Dave Hayhurst
Dave is head strategist and account manager at Marriage. He has extensive experience in consumer marketing, from executing campaigns in the national press, direct mail with Sky TV and digital marketing in the mobile app space.
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