TESCO | Food Love Stories | 2018
How "Food Stories" Brought a Supermarket Back to Life / TESCO "Food Love Stories"
This is the comeback story of a British supermarket that won the Grand Prix in the Media category at Cannes Lions in 2018. A campaign that was supposed to talk about food quality ended up winning by telling stories about human connection instead.
The problem
TESCO is the UK's biggest supermarket, but in the mid-2010s an accounting scandal and rising competitors cost it people's trust, and it got stuck with the image of being "too big to care." In 2015 it posted its biggest annual loss ever. With a new CEO coming in, MediaCom and BBH took on the challenge of rebuilding the brand.
The insight
While other supermarkets were busy promoting where their food came from or what ingredients went into it, TESCO focused not on the food itself, but on food's power to connect people. Everyone has their own small story tied to a dish — a family recipe, a curry their kid loves. Telling those stories turned out to be the most convincing way to say, "We know your life."
The idea
That became "Food Love Stories." Real customers talk about the dishes they love. In "David's hot or not chicken curry," he admits to secretly stirring in yogurt to tone down the spice without telling his wife. It's a small, ordinary detail, yet strangely real. Instead of turning these stories into one big ad, they split them into countless short pieces and spread them everywhere — in stores, on recipe cards, in emails, even through employees — so each one could reach a specific person.
What happened
The judges praised the campaign for its "exceptional media tradecraft," and it won the Grand Prix unanimously on the first vote. After the campaign launched, TESCO saw sales grow for 12 straight quarters.
Afterthought
No flashy stunts, just small stories piling up one after another. But once there were hundreds of them, people started to feel, "TESCO actually knows me." Sometimes the quiet, unglamorous work turns out to be the strongest. It's the kind of work I'd love to be part of someday.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2018
