What we did?
Branding
Communication
Service design
Farm fresh produce in the big city.
On a saturated Russian grocery market, our client decided to launch a new type of store. We put our heads together and researched consumer habits in big cities to find a niche that needed filling. Because the new grocery brand had to stand out and change something in people’s lives.
The shops were meant to be rather small, less than 200 sq.m. The first and most obvious idea was to create a corner shop for well-off locals. But there are many of those around and they’re quite boring, so we decided to do something completely different.
Let’s go for the quality one can’t find in a corner shop or hypermarket.
Quality is a broad term, that means too much and too little. To find out what quality really means, we created six different personas, different characters representing different lifestyles in a big city. From health-conscious Victor to new mom Natalia to pensioner Zoya. And then we asked ourselves, what would make all of them walk or drive an extra mile or two to a grocery shop? The answer was farm fresh food – a common thing on Russian open markets, but not so much in chain shops.
The chain-to-be obviously needed a name. With a clear-cut concept, it came pretty easily: Mozhno Est, which means “You Can Eat This”. And although there’s a promise of wholesome food in it, we went further. The value proposition is built on food selection and personal service that helps people live healthier lives. The brand needed to become a quality statement for shoppers, and let them show off where they shop as well.
The foundations of the new brand are a reliable supply of farm fresh goods and service. The people on the ground are not staff – they are hosts, like the shopkeepers of old. They have to know the value of their store and be experts in the goods they are selling. They have to know where different products come from. To have staff like that, means that it can’t be like working in a giant supermarket. So the brand owner set a clear target: MozhnoEst was going to become the best employer in the retail industry. We couldn’t have been happier with his ambition.
First mock-ups of the identity on a hypothetical shop facade
Once we figured out the name, a comprehensive identity system for a shop had to be built. We had to find a balance between making it feel like more than just another grocery chain, while avoiding the elitist trap. Accessible became the key word for the service concept. MozhnoEst makes shopping for farm fresh produce easy and convenient. The benchmark was the cosy market feel of a delicatessen shop. MozhnoEst had to become the obvious answer to the question: “Where can I find the freshest bread, veggies and milk?”
The shop had to be easy to enter and the staff easy to talk to. Both the in-shop communication and staff are well articulated, telling stories and explaining the origin of food: where it comes from, who grows it, when was it harvested, what makes it special. This also meant that staff had to feel good, and look good, with easy-to-wear shop clothes that are contemporary, comfortable, stylish and make them look like hosts rather than warehouse workers. This was complimented with conversation 101 lessons, to make sure interaction was easy and un-forced.
By the end of 2018, our client had opened 5 test shops in St.Petersburg. These are meant to be live prototypes, testing both individual locations as well as how the concept works as a chain. There are more shops in the pipeline. We’re looking forward to hearing about the results.
What we did?
Branding
Communication
Service design
Farm fresh produce in the big city.
On a saturated Russian grocery market, our client decided to launch a new type of store. We put our heads together and researched consumer habits in big cities to find a niche that needed filling. Because the new grocery brand had to stand out and change something in people’s lives.
The shops were meant to be rather small, less than 200 sq.m. The first and most obvious idea was to create a corner shop for well-off locals. But there are many of those around and they’re quite boring, so we decided to do something completely different.
Let’s go for the quality one can’t find in a corner shop or hypermarket.
Quality is a broad term, that means too much and too little. To find out what quality really means, we created six different personas, different characters representing different lifestyles in a big city. From health-conscious Victor to new mom Natalia to pensioner Zoya. And then we asked ourselves, what would make all of them walk or drive an extra mile or two to a grocery shop? The answer was farm fresh food – a common thing on Russian open markets, but not so much in chain shops.
The chain-to-be obviously needed a name. With a clear-cut concept, it came pretty easily: Mozhno Est, which means “You Can Eat This”. And although there’s a promise of wholesome food in it, we went further. The value proposition is built on food selection and personal service that helps people live healthier lives. The brand needed to become a quality statement for shoppers, and let them show off where they shop as well.
The foundations of the new brand are a reliable supply of farm fresh goods and service. The people on the ground are not staff – they are hosts, like the shopkeepers of old. They have to know the value of their store and be experts in the goods they are selling. They have to know where different products come from. To have staff like that, means that it can’t be like working in a giant supermarket. So the brand owner set a clear target: MozhnoEst was going to become the best employer in the retail industry. We couldn’t have been happier with his ambition.
First mock-ups of the identity on a hypothetical shop facade
Once we figured out the name, a comprehensive identity system for a shop had to be built. We had to find a balance between making it feel like more than just another grocery chain, while avoiding the elitist trap. Accessible became the key word for the service concept. MozhnoEst makes shopping for farm fresh produce easy and convenient. The benchmark was the cosy market feel of a delicatessen shop. MozhnoEst had to become the obvious answer to the question: “Where can I find the freshest bread, veggies and milk?”
The shop had to be easy to enter and the staff easy to talk to. Both the in-shop communication and staff are well articulated, telling stories and explaining the origin of food: where it comes from, who grows it, when was it harvested, what makes it special. This also meant that staff had to feel good, and look good, with easy-to-wear shop clothes that are contemporary, comfortable, stylish and make them look like hosts rather than warehouse workers. This was complimented with conversation 101 lessons, to make sure interaction was easy and un-forced.
By the end of 2018, our client had opened 5 test shops in St.Petersburg. These are meant to be live prototypes, testing both individual locations as well as how the concept works as a chain. There are more shops in the pipeline. We’re looking forward to hearing about the results.
Every major retailer has her own loyalty program. It has become a ubiquitous aspect of shopping – that customers expect to be rewarded for their loyalty.
Usually retailers focus on loyalty discounts, designed especially for privileged frequent customers. As in, the more you spend, the more you can save on discounts. Yet in the world of FMCG, in a fiercely competitive market, prices are already driven down by the producers themselves. Therefore a price-focused loyalty program will make the customer loyal only to discounts, not the brand.
We decided to take our client Prisma into another direction. Discounts and savings are great – but what’s the point of tiny savings if you cannot use or see them? Inspired by Prisma’s ‘one trouble less’ approach, we researched what customers really needed. And that was something tangible with which to rely on. Something that would accumulate, based on their everyday grocery shopping. So in addition to good prices, wide choice and customer-friendly shop layouts, they would collect a real and usable bonus. This is how Prisma Konto concept was born: the more you shop at Prisma for your groceries and supplies, the higher your bonus rate and consequently the amount of money that lands on your personal account in Prisma.
Let’s say you spent €100 last month. This gives you as a customer a 1% bonus, amounting to 1€ on your Konto account. With 200€ a month the bonus is 2%, which is already 4€. Utilising all the vast choice of products in Prisma and spending 500€ will grant you a bonus of 5% and €25 on your account. This is then saved money you can use for ice cream, Christmas gifts, sports gear or a new kitchen appliance. And Prisma Konto doesn’t require you to carry around another plastic customer card. It uses Estonian ID cards to identify customers, so it is truly one trouble less.
And what are the numbers saying? By May 2014 over 135,000 customers had joined Prisma Konto, collecting a staggering 1.6 million euro in total. These are pretty real savings, don’t you think?
R-Kiosk has over 100 locations in Estonia. They used to have sidewalk stalls and were focused on selling cigarettes, lottery and public transport tickets. The business was very much about saving customers money, which was echoed by how R-Kiosk was perceived: cheap. Our cooperation started with a deep dive into customer needs and wants, with an eye out also for societal change and how the cities were growing and changing.
The kiosks were serving a clientele that saw very little value in the brand. Cigarettes could be bought anywhere while various tickets were similarly a routine purchase. The little sidewalk kiosks did very little additional business, as upselling was hampered by the format. For customers, bending down to a kiosk’s little sale window was never pleasant. Half the year the weather is terrible, which made standing still and waiting for service while rain drips under the collar an even greater pain.
Reducing the customer’s agony, we reviewed what possibilities exist in the convenience market in Estonia, looking at both retail and food service. Through customer and employee interviews we determined several clear needs, none of which were the current main money maker: cigarettes and tickets. Healthy, fast food was a need. Not freezing outside waiting for service was a clear need. A much more pleasant retail environment was a need. Really good coffee, fresh bake-off products. Overall, what customer’s sought was more in relation to saving time than money.
R-Kiosk has become a quick alternative shopping destination. While people still won’t go out of their way to visit a kiosk, the clear value proposition of R-Kiosk does make them do detours. Especially in city centers, R-Kiosk has become an alternative source for a quick lunch, which until recently had only been satisfied by supermarkets. Following the thorough re-consideration of the selection, and how it should be offered, the graphic language of the brand was updated to make it easy and intuitive to find the right product.
Today, R-Kiosk clearly dominates the convenience store sector and is taking a healthy bite out of the fast food market as well. The sidewalk kiosks have disappeared, replaced by much nicer walk-in stores, with both room to browse as well as rush-in-out shopping.
Prisma is a hypermarket chain. Since 2009 we have been working with them to improve customer satisfaction. The retail market was and is very competitive and extremely price focused. Following the crash of 2008, the focus on price increased everywhere and caused retailers to overreact on driving price, and consequently quality, down.
Our first task was to do an extensive brand analysis of Prisma, and define sources of competitive advantage. Unlike the other retailers on the market, Prisma does posess a clear concept, which consists of:
– very wide aisles
– total lack of supplier POS material
– focus on pre-packaged goods rather than service counters
– a very broad range of groceries and a large section of durable goods and clothes
– a relentless focus on providing the lowest price on the market
However, the concept, while being reasonably clear in the above statement was not so in everyone’s head. Nor had it ever been written down. It was explained to staff during recruitment and occasionally in the course of daily work. This led to it being inconsistently applied and not a source of focus for the business. On top of this, communication focused on exactly the same things as the competition. Not surprisingly, consumer research of the period showed that customers couldn’t actually tell the difference between the different grocery chains and often actually couldn’t remember where they’d been.
The first task, therefore, was to clearly define the concept and write it down. A small handbook was published and distributed to all staff. Secondly, an internal communication campaign was started, that was clearly tied to consumer benefit and how it relates to what store staff do. Furthermore, we identified a number of key issues, notably also out-of-stock (which until then had never been measured), that influences how consumers feel about the store. A communication strategy, as well as tone-of-voice was developed, that focused on the concept strengths of Prisma, which has served as the foundation of all communication since 2009.
Overall, the goal was to focus on core strengths of the Prisma concept and avoid, as much as possible, price communication that was identical to what everyone else did. This key difference in the approach to communication, and internal communication, has helped Prisma gain a 10% market share (being limited only to major towns) with an overall 3% of marketing expenditure. Working on making the grocery shopping experience better, rather than just the advertising, helped save a lot on advertising.
