The Sauce – 31/01/24

Welcome to ‘The Sauce’ – your weekly dollop of marketing news.

This week’s edition was written by our Content & Comms Lead, Ash, and features Starling Bank’s new brand platform, how Currys boosted sales with its marketing strategy, a bold new ad from M&S, and how Primark’s focus on pricing has helped its sales.

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‘The Bank Built for You’

Starling Bank has launched its new brand platform, ‘The Bank Built for You’ as it pushes to hit its 2024 growth target. Created by Wonderhood Studios, the campaign aims to drive brand-fame across the company’s key audiences.

The cross-channel campaign will feature on TV, YouTube, digital, social, radio and podcasts. The new platform celebrates the people behind the money, and the campaign will run for three months, as part of a long-term marketing and audience strategy.

Starling revolutionised banking when it launched in 2017, as ‘Britain’s first digital bank’ and the new campaign supports ambitious growth plans for 2024, targeting account volumes and customer deposits. This follows key milestones in 2023, including hitting four million customer accounts, and increasing headcount by 38%.

The brand focus is accompanied by a 25% increase in headcount in the brand’s marketing communications function.

James Keith, our Account & Strategy Director, said, “Starling Bank has taken a unique approach to banking and marketing since they launched and it’s paid off. It’s fantastic to see them segmenting their audience and using relatable stories to highlight different features for different segments of their target audience. It’s something we always encourage our B2B clients to do – it’s crucial to understand your audience and what they want from your business.”

For help with audience segmentation and strategy, drop James an email: james@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk.

It’s crucial to understand your audience and what they want from your business.

Currys Attributes Customer Confidence to Brand Focus

Here’s what we love to see! Another business attributing success to a focus on their brand.

Currys has recently switched up its marketing, from a product-focus to a brand-focus and it’s paid off. The new marketing strategy aims to create ‘customers for life.’ Currys has invested significantly in the new strategy, which focuses on employee-expertise, and kicked off with its first brand campaign ‘Beyond Techspectations’.

As a result, the brand has seen sales for its services experience strong growth, including its iD mobile package, ‘care and repair’ options and credit extension service.

Currys’ Chief Executive Alex Baldock said: “In the UK and Ireland, we’ve kept up our encouraging momentum, in particular selling more of the services that boost margins and build customers for life.”

At Awesomesauce, we’re continuing to see a focus on brand and what makes a business unique, as key to boosting sales for our clients and across the industry. To find out how we can help your business, email hello@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk.

 

M&S Disrupts the Status Quo

M&S has disrupted the status quo in their latest M&S food ad. Renowned for their focus on quality via their instantly recognisable ‘This is not just any food – this is M&S food’, the brand has gone in a different direction for their latest campaign, focusing on value.

The ad features the band Status Quo, singing an updated version of their legendary ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ song, with the lyrics changed to ‘Saving All Over the Store’. It also features TikTok users in the store, picking up bargains and rocking along. The video will be played in stores and on the brand’s social media channels.

It focuses on the store’s ‘Remarksable Value’ range and ‘Dine In’ meals and coincides with a price lock campaign which will run until after Easter, building on over 200 price cuts M&S made in October.

Uniquely the idea came direct from the shop floor, from retail sales manager Jack Norbury who has already achieved millions of views for M&S Devizes on TikTok with value-themed videos.

Ashleigh Morris, our digital content expert, said, “M&S has addressed current market challenges and consumer concerns with their recent focus on price and value. The ad is memorable because it’s fun and it features such an iconic and well-known song. It promotes the M&S value range without undermining the brand’s quality message, and crucially it taps into a potential new audience with the use of TikTok. It’s fantastic to see a company taking ideas from its team members working in-store.”

Looking to tap into a new market with some new content this year? Drop Ash a message: ashleigh@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk.

It promotes the M&S value range without undermining the brand’s quality message, and crucially it taps into a potential new audience with the use of TikTok.

Primark’s Pricing Boosts Performance

Primark has credited its pricing strategy for its increased sales, with finance director of the brand’s parent company claiming, “We probably spend every day of our lives in Primark worrying about whether we got the right price points… we look at it on a daily basis, not just monthly.”

The brand’s retail sales for Q1 increased 7.9%, with like-for-like sales up 2.1%. Their market share also reached a new record of 7.1%.

In November the brand claimed it would not be passing price increases onto customers, and that decision seems to have paid off. Primark also credits investment into online sales for its recent successes.

We’re seeing many clients re-look at their pricing strategy alongside their marketing strategy this year to address market fluctuations and help consumer confidence. Drop us a message to find out how we can help you with your strategy for 2024 and beyond.

 

You can check out our latest dollop of marketing news next week, and read our previous posts here.

Want to find out more about what we do and how we can help your business? 

Contact our Account & Strategy Director James Keith here >>> james@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk.