The taste of success

The team behind Sainsbury’s premium food offer had a big, bold commercial goal – to turn the £500k Taste the Difference brand into a £1bn earner within three years. Delivering against that kind of stretching objective meant taking it from the cul de sac of occasional weekend treats into a regular part of the everyday shopping trolley. What was needed was an imaginative, open-minded review at what the brand stood for, as well as what it offered, so that consumers would be looking for it and buying it at every point in the store.

A new manifesto

We worked with the team to set out their manifesto for what Taste the Difference should do for the everyday food loving consumer. It locked together their approach on sourcing and quality, seasonality and standards, environment and communication, as well as establishing the important fit with the overall Sainsbury’s brand. Then we developed a rapid programme of creative working sessions involving their product developers, marketers, communications specialists and agencies. After just weeks, rather than months, we had helped them flesh out the vision with examples of what it might mean for range, packaging and communications. As an approach, it explored every aspect of the consumer and supplier experience and gave the team a springboard for taking the brand onwards and upwards. As Tim Adams, Head of Own Brand Marketing expressed it:

“this work helped us to get under the skin of the brand and identify some big themes upon which to build our future”. 

Ahead of schedule

With a clear vision of what they could achieve and the inspiration to translate it into reality, the Taste the Difference team delivered their goal of becoming a £1bn brand a year ahead of schedule.