As thé leading supermarket brand in The Netherlands, ‘ALBERT HEIJN’ entered the Belgian market at about 10 years ago. But with the Belgian retail market being very, very protective and saturated with national and international legacy brands, after more than a decade of campaigning still 50% of Belgians didn’t consider setting foot in an ALBERT HEIJN store. So, how could get those Belgians to finally open-up to a Dutch brand?

To finally break the resistance and get Belgians to come to our store without having to come to our store, we decided to invest our entire budget into Belgians favourite form of entertainment: a sitcom.

Introducing: ‘Grocery Stories’.

A sitcom about the ‘not-so-daily’ life of a store manager and her employees, in a Belgian ALBERT HEIJN. With typically Belgian eccentric characters and typically Belgian off-beat humour. And with a cast of totally unknown amateur actors, selected to be as representative as real Belgian Albert Heijn employees as possible. (all of them are now famous!). Six long episodes (6 to 9 minutes) and a few shorter ones (2 to 3 minutes), to get Belgians to familiarize with our store and products, without them realizing it since all was hidden in a typical sitcom narrative. “It’s not advertising because it’s a sitcom, that is not a sitcom because it’s advertising.”

Even after 10 years of trying, still 50% of Belgians did not consider setting foot in this Dutch challenger supermarket store. So, the business challenge was – well, yes - extremely challenging: how to get the other 50% of Belgians to finally open-up to a Dutch retailer, with almost no share of media* versus competing national and international legacy brands?

The insight: prejudices only disappear once you really get to know each other.

All prejudices were simply not true: it has the best fresh department, high-quality products and one of the most pleasant grocery store shopping experiences in the world. But prejudices like these are just too deeply engrained to solve with words or advertising.

Six long episodes (6 to 9 minutes) and a few shorter ones (2 to 3 minutes), to get Belgians to familiarize with our store and products, without them realising it since all was hidden in a typical sitcom narrative. To quote Belgians biggest local newspaper: “It’s not advertising because it’s a sitcom, that is not a sitcom because it’s advertising.”. All of them (and season 2 in the meantime) to be found at: www.dewereldinhetkleijn.be

It was a brave move, but it massively paid off: from a challenger to a leader, in just 1 year. With only 0,02% growth in its share of outlets, Albert Heijn got to an increased market share of no less than 15% (vs declining competitors). A record +10% penetration growth. All of this with a ‘campaign’ so different (+100% distinctiveness, +70% conversation worthiness), yet ‘authentic’, yet commercial that it finally gained the familiarity (+20%) and trust (+25%) of Belgians. Making Albert Heijn move from the 12th place to the 2nd place when it comes to brand affinity, in just one ‘season’! Belgians loved it and the series was also nominated at ‘The Jamies’ (= the local Emmies) as best series of 2023. And this is only the beginning, because season 2 and 3 are already confirmed and planned to also appear on the two biggest local Belgian streaming platforms.