Spar to focus on digital marketing in bid to get all UK customers online
Press Release
Date: 15 July 2010
Convenience store brand Spar is putting a new focus on digital marketing as it looks to bring its entire UK customer base online. The supermarket has stepped up its digital activity significantly this year, with 10% of its overall marketing budget dedicated to it.
Spar has launched an online game, Ultimate Athletics, to back its sponsorship of the UK athletics team in the build-up to the 2010 European Athletics Championships in Barcelona. The game is the latest move in the supermarket’s Taste the Atmosphere campaign, following the World Cup and Wimbledon.
Adam Margolin, head of marketing support for Spar UK, said, “Before the launch of the summer sport campaign, our site traffic was averaging around 19,000 visits, and that has jumped to 125,000 since the start of the campaign in June, which is an encouraging sign.”
The online game, created by digital agency 20:20, is the second Spar has hosted. The first was ShelfSniper, which attracted “hundreds of thousands” of players, according to Laith Clark, managing partner at 20:20.
Margolin said Spar hopes to top that figure with the new game, and will look to attract 250,000 players. Early figures indicate an average of 14 game starts per unique player. Players can choose from five athletics events, all set within a Spar and UK Athletics-branded environment.
The games are linked to social networks Twitter and Facebook to encourage players to share scores and invite friends to play. Spar is also running online competitions, with prizes including trips to Barcelona.
Margolin said the company is also planning to step up its affiliate marketing activity. It will be running offline marketing off the back of the campaign, including in-store point-of-sale, leaflets, press ads, radio and email. UK Athletics is also launching online ads across sports sites, which will link back to the Spar campaign.