In marketing, reputation is everything. It’s what everyone obsesses over day in and day out. And once again, Marketing has partnered with Leger for a consumer survey of hundreds of brands active in the Canadian market to produce the scorecard of who has the best brand reputation.
In the May 20 issue, subscribers will find The Top 100 ranking and company profiles of the biggest movers and shakers from the Marketing/Leger Corporate Reputation Survey. Meanwhile, MarketingMag.ca is highlighting a few of the biggest stories to emerge from this year’s research.
#5 – Shoppers Drug Mart
A popular brand again makes gains, jumping up 8 spots
Shoppers Drug Mart isn’t your grandma’s drugstore. In an effort to keep evolving its offering to consumers, it has been making moves to connect with them in more relevant and personalized ways. That has led to everything from a bigger emphasis on providing customers with flu vaccinations to sending exclusive Carlton cards to members of its Optimum loyalty program who turned 50 last year as the company did, too. Shoppers also recently partnered with RBC on a debit and credit card for Optimum members.
The Optimum program itself—which has more than 10 million members—continues to be a strong focus for the company, says senior vice-president of marketing, Sandra Sanderson. It launched the multiplatform Optimum “Free Feels Good” campaign last year to capture how members feel about the program. “It was a much more emotive way of talking about Optimum because it was more about the end result of interacting and being a member,” says Sanderson, as opposed to simply the value aspect.
Best Reputations:
• Reeboks’ big move
• CBC/Radio-Canada steps up
• Sobeys’ focus on food, customer service
• Grand & Toy jumps up the reputation rankings, rebrands to the Max
Shoppers also made a concerted effort in 2012 to focus on seniors. “We know that over half of Canadian seniors shop at our stores at least once a month,” says Sanderson. To communicate the value Shoppers provides through in-store discounts and prescription co-pay reductions, it launched an integrated pharmacy campaign targeted to seniors in Ontario. Even though it’s targeting grandmas, Shoppers is proving it’s anything but old fashioned.
Secrets of their success…
“We’ve always been true to our value proposition, which is around health, beauty, convenience… and we have not deviated. So in the case of beauty, for a long time drugstores were only known for mass cosmetics. We developed the concept of the ‘beauty boutique’ which was around delivering consumers with a new shopping experience for prestige cosmetics. Right now, 40% of cosmetic buyers buy both mass and prestige cosmetics; they can come to Shoppers Drug Mart and have a great experience in both. We are helping to make consumers’ lives easier, which then also fulfills our value proposition of convenience. More recently, we’ve had a more significant focus on connecting with consumers in a more emotive way. For example, for [the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2012] of course we had promotions and savings and contesting, but we also felt there was an opportunity to connect with consumers by inviting them to post their special memories of Shoppers Drug Mart on a digital hub. There was a tangible value—come into the store for promotions—but we also wanted to engage with them in a different way.” – Sandra Sanderson, SVP of marketing, Shoppers Drug Mart
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