Less than two weeks until the M&S range goes on sale on the Ocado website, Waitrose has launched a new marketing campaign aimed at converting Ocado shoppers to its own online store.
It follows M&S’s move this week to target the mainstream supermarkets with a campaign that highlights its more competitive pricing on a range of grocery staples.
Ahead of ending its product partnership with Ocado, Waitrose has been investing millions in ramping up its online operation, including developing a new food innovation centre and distribution centres. It has now launched a multi-channel marketing campaign titled ‘bring home Ocado shoppers to Waitrose.com’.
This will run across advertising, PR, social media, digital and CRM channels, with the aiming of raising awareness of the switchover, showcasing the supermarket’s online proposition, and driving more traffic to Waitrose.com.
Having expanded rapidly in recent months, Waitrose stated that it was on track to treble the size of its online unit to become a £1bn business in its own right by the end of the year. This has been accelerated by increasing demand during the coronavirus crisis, with Waitrose growing its capacity by around 50% to offer 160,000 delivery slots each week.
The supermarket’s revamped food innovation centre at its Bracknell headquarters has also recently developed 5,000 new or reformulated products. This equates to nearly a third of the 14,000-17,000 own label products sold under its own brands such as Duchy Organic, essential Waitrose and Waitrose No. 1.
Martin George, Customer Director at Waitrose & Partners, commented: “Waitrose own label products have historically made up a quarter of Ocado’s grocery sales, so we know a lot of people who use the service love our products, are loyal to our brand and are keen to avoid any disruption. With that in mind, we have focused on retaining and reformulating our customers’ favourite products as well as developing thousands of new ones – all of which are sure to entice them to Waitrose.com.”
He added: “We’re excited for Waitrose.com to now be the only place for the public to buy our range of 17,000 unique Waitrose own label products online.”
