[Paroles de créatifs] “Does retail inspire you?” – Marketing

What is your view of advertising creation in the retail sector?

What struck us with the retail sector was the new breath of advertising he has known in recent years. This new creative impetus was first driven by brands like Monoprix or Intermarché. But other brands quickly took over: Leclerc, Carrefour, Aldi or even Lidl today. However, despite all this creative momentum, we note a shift in the discourse: letailers have become a bit moralizing in their speeches, a little too often serious, suddenly speech for good and pathos. Is it perhaps a collateral effect of covid, with in particular the rise of environmental issues, on which distributors are often challenged? And that is obviously understood, because they play a fundamental role in our societies. But by dint of seriousness and commitment, perhaps the sector has ended up forgetting the essentials: where have gone the pleasure and the lightness ?

What inspires you in retail?

For a creative agency, working on a retail subject is always a real challenge : you have to succeed in reconciling strong business issues (drive, traffic, lead, etc.) with huge image issues. As such, the campaign that has always inspired me the most is that of Sainsbury’s: ‘Try something new today’ (AMV BBDO). They started from an absolutely universal insight: every time you go shopping, you always buy more or less the same basket. So Sainsbury’s decided to rebuild its entire value proposition around a simple objective: if you encourage people to add a single unexpected product to their basket, they open up a world of discovery and business takes off. TV spots, radio, brand content, POS, CRM… all marketing levers were activated to respond to them for several years, with incredible image and business results at stake. Bright.

What is your best advertising memory for a consumer product?

Axis ‘Getting Dressed’ (BBH) : a couple wakes up in a bed, they get up and start to get dressed. But their clothes are scattered all over the city. They manage to recover everything, even their pair of shoes, placed next to their supermarket shopping carts, where they met. Everyone therefore finds their cart and resumes their life. Loopback: ‘Because you never know’. It’s simple, cool, fair. The music is perfect. And it ends on the supermarket, a place of routine but also of unexpected encounters.

Your last crush for a foreign advertisement?

Heineken’s ‘A Lockdown Lovestory’ (Publicis Milan, 2001). A wonderful love story in the time of covid. For Heineken it is also a big statement on modern dating: the rules of dating have changed! A film bronze at Cannes this year.

What do you think are the most creative sectors in terms of advertising, in retail?

In essence, retail has this ability to offer an almost infinite range of products. It basically covers almost all the other sectors. But most important of all, it’s still food. After all, the primary and fundamental function of a GSA is to feed the French people. This is no small responsibility. Especially in a country like ours, France, where there is nothing more essential than eating well, spending time there, enjoying it. It ends up seeming normal to us, but let’s realize that we are more an exception than a norm in this area! So at the beginning of the year, when we had the chance to work for the brand Big Freshwith its unique store experience, a bit like a market with all these products that immediately make you hungry… we thought it was a unique opportunity to reaffirm what the sector had ended up forgetting to tell: the pleasure of good food, and even the love of shopping.