Effectiveness Awards: how BBH and MediaCom delivered Tesco's £644m incremental profit

Tesco, BBH and MediaCom have won the Channon Prize for Best New Learning with their 'From serving shoppers to serving the nation' paper.

The paper reported that: "After a successful 2015-2019 turnaround story, COVID-19 brought new challenges for Tesco. This IPA entry is not a story of short-term gains, but a continuation of a long-term strategy that continued to pay dividends. Through a ruthless focus on the drivers of supermarket choice (trust, quality and value), the approach helped Tesco gain market share and build brand equity. It is estimated that £644 million of incremental profit was generated at a ROMI of £3.54."

Its principal authors were John Harrison and Simon Gregory from BBH and Francesca Blair and James Parnur from MediaCom. Nick Ashley from Tesco and Jaxen Fowler from MediaCom Business Science also contributed.

A summary video is below:

Nick Ashley, head of media and campaign planning at Tesco, said: "This IPA paper has built on the paper from 2020 and has further reinforced the 3 fundamental beliefs at the heart of Tesco marketing. These fundamentals became even more important during Covid, and will continue to guide us as we move forward:

1 . Serve the needs of the customer: It was through a deep understanding of what our customers really needed over the different phases of Covid that enabled us to be genuinely helpful at that moment. Our relentless focus on this in the period prior to the Pandemic ensured customers could trust Tesco to serve their changing needs.

2. Get the fundamentals right: Focusing on the key drivers of supermarket choice; optimising the split of brand building and activation media; building a shared ambition across Tesco and our agencies for both short- and long-term objectives. These fundamental building blocks of marketing continue to give us a clarity and ensure we are not distracted.

3 . Differentiation: Helpfulness is in Tesco’s DNA. The leadership position we took when Covid struck was born of the brand’s desire to be genuinely helpful; as we enter another period of economic uncertainty, the brand will continue to prioritise this.

The value of Marketing to the Tesco business has always been appreciated right up to the very top of the organisation. This IPA paper provides further evidence for this appreciation."