Forging Belonging: Why Co-op Is Celebrating Its Colleague Promise

For a supermarket, Co-op is uniquely democratic, but until recently it had never shed much of a spotlight on its membership scheme - something which is available to all shoppers for just £1.

That changed when VCCP took control of the creative account last year, launching a bold rebrand centred on the slogan 'Owned by You Right by You.' The campaign spotlighted Co-op’s collective culture and emphasised colleague feedback, reinforcing the sense of shared ownership that defines the business.

The inspiration draws from Co-op’s roots: founded by the Rochdale Pioneers in the 19th century as a response to inequality and poverty, the organisation aimed to offer communities quality food and return profits to the collective.

Building on this legacy, Co-op has introduced the Colleague Promise - a new initiative structured around three key pillars:

• A Place with Purpose: where employees have a say in how things are run.

• A Place You’ll Belong: a welcoming and inclusive workplace.

• A Place You Can Thrive: with support for physical, financial, and mental wellbeing.

While designed as a recruitment tool, the Promise is also a core element of Co-op’s wider people strategy. It spans across all areas of the business - from food retail and funeral care to insurance and legal services.

Speaking to Creative Salon, Co-op marketing director Mel Matson explains the thinking behind the Colleague Promise, the insights that shaped it, and how it aims to support both internal culture and external brand perception - especially in the face of recent challenges and future growth ambitions.

Creative Salon: What was the brief behind the Colleague Promise campaign and why is this something Co-op feels is vital to communicate to consumers as well as staff? 

Mel Matson: When we launched our new brand platform, ‘Owned By You. Right By You’, Colleague Promise was an essential part of it because most of our colleagues are member-owners.

'The Colleague Promise' needed to be compelling, clearly highlighting what makes working at Co-op unique and grounded in real experience.

Our business embraces different expressions of a shared Co-op culture, so it was essential to acknowledge those nuances and at the same time highlight the core values that connect us all. Sharing it externally shows how a career at Co-op stands apart, which is important for talent recruitment across the business.

How does this further build the brand platform and what do you hope consumers think of when they hear ‘Owned by You. Right By You.’? 

Through our social advocacy platform, our colleagues are important advocates who are champions of our organisational purpose - a pioneering purpose that’s as alive today as it was 180 years ago. We’re transparent, openly addressing any areas identified for improvement. And our colleagues appreciate the openness and having the right to reply. Adopting a candid approach encourages authentic advocacy, making positive feedback from colleagues more genuine and impactful.

What constitutes success for this campaign and how will it be monitored? 

Success for this campaign will be measured in terms of any increase in employer brand awareness, improvements in talent attraction performance, and on our colleagues’ willingness to actively advocate for the promise externally. Internally, we’re working on a measurement framework that evidences how well we’re living up to the three pillars of the proposition, and that’s with a view to taking action where we’re not doing enough to keep our promise to colleagues.

Did anything surprise you during the research and development of the campaign? 

We were surprised by the level of consensus that we observed during research and internal workshops. Co-op is such a diverse organisation with so many different roles, but what unites us is a sense of purpose. It might be perceived differently depending on what you do, and certainly some people feel it more tangibly day-to-day than others, but many colleagues feel that Co-op has an authentic purpose beyond profit, and that’s powerful. 

Is recruitment an important focus for the business right now? Why is that? 

Yes, we are currently hiring extensively as part of a goal to expand the business, which in part the cyber incident delayed. The Colleague Promise will help us attract the right kind of candidates who can support and drive this growth. 

Is this all the more vital an initiative in response to the cyber-attack? 

If anything, how our colleagues responded to the cyber incident reinforced the spirit of the statements that we make within the Colleague Promise; particularly how everyone pulled together and demonstrated cooperation in action when challenges called for us to come together. 

After a year since its appointment - how has the partnership between the marketing team and VCCP’s Employer Brand team evolved? 

We’ve built a really good partnership which is based on, amongst other things, a willingness to challenge each other openly and honestly. I’d like to think both sides have learned a lot during the year we’ve worked together. From a Co-op point of view, we’ve learned more about how to effectively manage the sheer volume of stakeholder input that goes into something like this – we’re a democratic cooperative where people have a say. That’s a core strength but can make co-ordinating and shaping a clear Colleague Promise challenging! Uniting around the ‘Owned By You. Right By You’ brand platform has made it possible. 

The price match promise against Aldi is important for the business when costs have increased year after year. How has that been performing so far? 

The Aldi price match on everyday essentials has been well received by our members, especially since it focuses on the most-shopped items that truly impact their shopping baskets. It also reinforced our commitment to provide competitive value, both in-store and online. Overall, by investing £170m into price improvements over the last two years we've worked to ensure our value offering remains strong. We’re challenging perceptions of convenience shopping, demonstrating that there’s no need to compromise on value or quality when shopping with us.