Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Ignore sales promotions, put your prices up and most customers probably don’t care…assuming they notice.

The “big four” of supermarkets, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s, have increased the number of £1 promotional price tags 150% over the past year. This compared with a 6% increase in their general promotions, according to a report compiled on behalf of industry magazine the Grocer.

Source: BBC Magazine

The above article is an extract from an article about the rounding up of prices from 99p to £1. Do the maths: what might that equate to in increased annual profits? Simple and effective; this is a great example of pricing being used correctly in the marketing mix.

Should we complain about the cauliflower?

Well, it was a shock to Jo, one of my daughters. In one of her rare encounters with the kitchen she was dismayed at how small the head of the cauliflower was in comparison to the leaves surrounding it.

She was so horrified she got me to take a photo of it and weigh the evidence. The pound coin and the baked beans are for scale reference only.

The edible head of the cauli was 288g and the leaves alone weighed in at 548g. I’m not sure who she thinks we should complain to.

Through a very narrow association (supermarkets) this got me pondering on recent supermarket adverts. ASDA were claiming that they had over 2,000 items lower in price than Tesco. At the same time Tesco had just over 200 items cheaper than ASDA. On this basis ASDA were making themselves out to be the best.

This is a very interesting bit of positioning. You can see how the ASDA cauliflower got me here now.

The point firstly is do I want the 2,000 cheap ASDA items? Perhaps it is the 200 Tesco products at a better price that I want.

My second point is, are we after cheap or good value or a good experience. If the ASDA price claim is as powerful as they make out why are people going elsewhere? Why aren’t the queues always out the door?

Tesco were recently not advertising. This was to let word of mouth deliver their message virally. And here I am contributing to it! Good old Tesco.

I was off to a BBQ at the home of a French man yesterday. I thought I’d take a couple of bottles of English wine.

So off I trotted to Marks & Spencers at The Meadows near Camberley. Not a bottle of English wine in site.

Then I wnt to the Tesco megastore next door. Hundreds of wines from all over the world: but just one English wine on sale.

English wine manufacturing may have made great strides in recent years but, from my experience, the distribution is lagging behind!

The English Wine website:

Key facts about English wine

1. There are around 400 English vineyards
2. ‘Quality wines’ are subject to rigorous controls
3. Where’s the biggest English vineyard? Only 20 miles from London (Denbies, Dorking – 250 acres))
4. Whites – wide variety, but traditional English whites have very floral bouquet & high acidity – very refreshing!
5. Reds – Once thought impossible – but it is and they vary from light, thru mellow and even full-bodied
6. Sparkling – The great success story – similar soils to champagne and edgier climate mean truly great English sparkling wines – as evidenced in international competitions”