Since the launch of its Metro&Moi rewards program last year, the marketing for the Metro grocery chain has mostly focused on its customers, the freshness of its produce, and its personalised service.
Now, however, Metro is putting the grocer at the center of the campaign.
Publicis Montreal has created a television commercial in which a grocer takes a customer on a plane ride. They are joined by a fleet charged with dispatching M points – the store’s reward points – to its reported two million subscribers (which works out to about 1 out of 4 Quebeckers). The ad ends with a sky-written “thank you.”
The “Metro – my grocer” slogan was launched at the same time as the new Metro&Moi program.
“We are now entering phase two of the program, where customers will get rewards on their favourite products according to their purchasing habits,” said Nicolas Massey, vice-president and creative director at Publicis Montreal.
“This is where the change to ‘my grocer’ comes from, because he is now Metro’s ambassador. He is a character we will be using in the next campaigns and who will do everything, even the impossible, to satisfy customers. It begins with a plane ride.”
In a behind-the-scenes video on the campaign, Marc Giroux, vice-president of marketing for the grocery chain, also points out that there was a desire to return to “Metro’s history of big campaigns.”
As a matter of fact, the television commercial stands out from previous ones by the size of the production: a helicopter flew over the province all the way to Les Éboulements in Charlevoix, to find locations. Shots of cities and the countryside were done without using a green screen – Jet Films spent a large part of the summer working on it. And an orchestra was even used to record the music (composed by Apollo).
La Majeure, Jet Films, Apollo, Fly Studios and Vision Globale also worked on the campaign, which is broadcast on all the French-language channels.
