Tesco uses marketing first principles of audience understanding and consistency to solve a gnarly communications challenge.
A range message is one of the hardest messages to communicate – especially when it’s new information. We’ve all seen the famous Kantar chart showing the danger of multiple messages in ads. This is hard to avoid when communicating a broad and varied offering.
This is Tesco’s challenge in its latest campaign “Need anything from Tesco?” How to tell people that you do everything from holiday insurance to batteries without overwhelming them?
They goes back to marketing first principles.
Tesco are clear-eyed about two of the strong associations people have with them. Their long‑standing tagline “Every little helps”; and that asking someone if they “need anything from Tesco” is now part of the British vernacular.
Between those two concepts sits their entire range.
Tesco are confident enough in their brand and their knowledge of their audience to use these to bookended the campaign. The time and energy they have spent on audience knowledge and brand consistency is therefore a dividend they draw upon to tackle tricky communications challenges.
Need anything from Tesco? Turns out they even do brand‑building masterclasses.
Every month I share my ‘Brand of the Month’ (BOTM), writing about what I think other marketers can learn about a brand who I think is doing great work at the moment, in less than 200 words (or 1min reading time).
Tim Clancy is a brand builder working at LinkedIn and at the intersection of strategy, execution, and marketing effectiveness. He loves a tight brief, a big idea and Richard Rumelt (his writing at least). He also runs a blog, Brand! Fizz! Wallop!, where he shares his latest thoughts on brands, marketing and leadership; and coaches people on how incorporate AI into their day to day so they can have fulfilling and successful careers.
