WE FUELLED A CAR WITH SHOPPING

PR, social media and influencer campaign to launch Tesco Clubcard’s Fuel Save initiative

THE CHALLENGE
Tesco had announced its Clubcard Fuel Save initiative to national business media and received widespread coverage. The challenge was to secure further national coverage in the consumer pages to drive broader awareness.

THE BRIEF
Deliver a creative campaign appealing to consumer media that brings to life the message that for every pound you spend on shopping at Tesco you get money off your petrol at a Tesco petrol station.

THE SOLUTION
We campaigned to get Brits back on the road, highlighting real life issues caused by the cost of fuel and demonstrating how the Fuel Save initiative would help.

We built a car made entirely out of groceries to bring the Fuel Save initiative to life, and toured it round UK cities.

For a news hook, we commissioned research revealing that fuel prices prevent Brits visiting family and friends, and brought a spokesperson from Mumsnet to discuss the findings on radio. For a second spike we revealed that people were put off UK holidays by petrol prices and listed the favourite places people would have otherwise visited. We timed this with the bank holiday and a spokesperson from the RAC added credibility and third-party endorsement.

To highlight that every £50 spent in store earns you 2p off a litre, we created a Twitter competition that mirrored this function. Followers were asked to simply retweet a tweet, and with every 50 retweets 2p was added to the prize pot. The challenge was to reach 3,000 retweets to create a total prize fund of £100 Tesco vouchers for ten people.

We engaged with key influencers who kept fuel diaries and rewarded them with fuel and vouchers for a day out with their family on the bank holiday.

THE OUTCOME

As well as clearly explaining the mechanism, the campaign infused a simple price promotion with clear emotional benefits, showing Tesco championing families. Within six months of launch of the initiative Tesco gave away over 399 million free miles to its customers. 84 pieces of coverage with an OTS of 275 million. 7 national news pieces. 7 million Tesco and #FuelSave Twitter impressions.