Tesco: It’s everything.
In the 2000’s, the Tesco brand was ubiquitous. Under the leadership of Sir Terry Leahy the supermarket chain grew to a point where £1 in every £7 spent on the high street went to Tesco. It launched the famous Tesco Clubcard to help monitor who the customers were, and diversified into areas such as mobile phones and clothing. Stores also ranged in size from larger Tesco Extra hypermarkets to smaller Tesco Express local stores.
Since that time of course, the retail environment has changed. Tesco remains the UK’s largest supermarket, but today it faces competition from Lidl and Aldi among others. Plus, a large proportion of everyday supplies are delivered to our front doors by online sites such as Amazon.
To remind us then of the place the brand still holds in our lives, Tesco has launched the ‘It’s everything’ marketing campaign. The campaign features adverts showing the famous Tesco logo replaced with words such as ‘Thank’, and ‘Party’. More importantly though, the adverts feature these words carried by customers in a range of everyday settings. The psychological principle here? Social proof.
Social proof one of seven principles of influence, established by Robert Cialdini. In simple terms, social proof is the provision of ‘proof points’, or examples of others, undertaking behaviour that an observer then considers adopting. Typical examples include case studies and reviews. Social proof is particularly powerful in situations of uncertainty. For instance, when you’re a visitor to a foreign country, or perhaps a new employee, you probably pay particular attention to others in your social setting. Others provide social cues that you then follow.
You don’t need to be a brand the size of Tesco though to employ social proof. Just show an uncertain potential customer that others before them have purchased your product or service. Even images of satisfied customers might do the trick, just like the Tesco adverts. If you can persuade these happy customers to post their own content, that would be ideal. This really enters the realm of ‘warranting theory’ though, which is a topic for another day!
Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash
