FOR SUPERMARKETS, THE COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS LEADS TO DWINDLING DIFFERENTIATION.

With less money in our pockets value-for-money and discount-offers are becoming the key drivers of purchase. Not just for discounters but for all supermarkets. This means that advertising for supermarkets feel the same more than ever before: numerous discounters advertise with "savings offers" or "deals of the week". This naturally includes the discounter PENNY, which has always focused its communication on low prices.

AS A RESULT OF INFLATION, HOWEVER, NON-DISCOUNTERS ARE ALSO INCREASINGLY USING OFFER COMMUNICATION.

With dwindling differentiation in a whole industry, the big question is: how can you stand out when everyone else is focusing on price – while still communicating offers? Especially when PENNY's two main competitors each have twice the budget?

THE BRIEFING:

A campaign that gets through to people with more than "just" low prices so that PENNY becomes the supermarket of choice for more people.

AS THE CRISIS CONTINUES, PEOPLE NEED SECURITY AND CLOSENESS.

With everyone else focussing on price, emotional factors become an underestimated factor in purchasing decisions. This is where PENNY's brand promise comes in: For years, only PENNY has positioned itself as a "neighbourhood store" with each store being named after its immediate neighbourhood: "PENNY Hamburg-Winterhude", "PENNY Frankfurt-Nordend"… PENNY stands for closeness and familiarity. We just need to push this promise to a new level.

THE HUMAN VOICE: CREATING IDENTITY, EMOTION, INTIMACY.

We recognise our mother's voice long before we are born. We know instantly whether we like a voice, can sense emotion and even have an image without visual information. This is our chance to combine the rational communication of offers with the emotionality of familiarity and closeness:

BRINGING PENNY’S PROMISE TO LIFE: A VOICE FOR THE NEIGHBOURHOOD THAT CONVEYS FAMILIARITY. AND NOT JUST LOW PRICES.

RADIO IS KEY FOR OFFERS BUT LACKS REAL CLOSENESS.

Although radio is one of the most important channels for regional offers, communicating local offers for shops throughout Germany is too complex and expensive. Hence, radio is a channel that doesn’t fulfil PENNY's brand promise of being close.

WE SEE THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY.

By bringing real closeness to the all-important radio, we’ll be the first supermarket to get closer to people on this channel. And more credibly than anyone else. Because anyone can offer low prices. Only PENNY can offer being close.

FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL NEIGHBOURHOOD. THANKS TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Hyper-local, individualised radio communication has been impossible to achieve at reasonable cost. Until now: For the first time, we are using artificial intelligence to individualise audio spots by market, area and offer in a fast and uncomplicated way. Scalable, authentic and without any loss of quality.

DECEPTIVELY REAL: A SYNTHETIC VOICE...

Based on a cloned human voice and various data points such as market, address, area and offers, an AI produces a variety of individualised commercials in a very short time.

...TELLS YOU ABOUT YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD PENNY. AND YOU. AND YOU.

Our approach serves 221 shops with weekly changing motifs over a period of 13 weeks. So our AI has to speak/produce a whopping 2,873 synthetic ads. What would have taken several weeks with a traditional production process is completed in a matter of minutes thanks to the AI voice.

LITTLE EFFORT - BIG EFFECT.

Store-specific and weekly changing placements let us not only using radio more effectively, but also more efficiently than ever before. Without high costs for time-consuming productions.

In short, this is no ordinary audio-DCO campaign. But a global first, based on AI production!

A milestone in audio advertising.

INDIVIDUALISED APPROACH LEADS TO MORE “BEING CLOSE” TO PENNY...

75% remember 'their' Penny being mentioned in the ad.

+53% perceived closeness between brand and people proves the effectiveness of the campaign.

After the campaign, almost one in two people feel closer to Penny.

...AND MAKES PENNY THE SUPERMARKET OF CHOICE FOR ONE IN SEVEN.

+38% First Choice compared to all other supermarkets - discounters and hypermarkets!

Remarkable when you consider that the two biggest competing discounters each have more than twice our budget...