THE END OF AN ERA.

For generations, Germans have planned their shopping with offer flyers. This is now a thing of the past.

SUPERMARKET REWE IS SWITCHING OFF THE "FLYER".

This will save 70,000+ tonnes of paper and the annual energy consumption of a 100,000k-household-city. But this also means pulling the plug on the most important channel for communicating offers.

REWE IS THE FIRST SUPERMARKET IN GERMANY TO TAKE THIS STEP.

At the end of the day, however, REWE is also a responsible employer for thousands of people. The decision can therefore only be upheld if it does not have a negative impact on sales and REWE does not get into financial difficulties as a result.

WE ARE THEREFORE FACED WITH TWO TASKS:

(1) Continue to provide consumers with REWE offers.

(2) Develop local and innovative media alternatives to the flyer with a broad reach in order to secure sales.

TWO TASKS LEAD TO TWO LAYERS, THAT WE HAVE TO ORCHESTRATE.

(1) THE REWE APP SUDDENLY BECOMES THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANNEL FOR OFFERS - EVEN THOUGH IT IS STILL UNDER-UTILISED.

The app brings the supermarkets offers digitally into our pockets. But compared to the flyer, too few people use the app. In order not to lose out to competitors (whose offers continue to flutter through letterboxes), people need to understand REWEs message "Goodbye paper brochures, hello digital offers!"

(2) MORE THAN 2,000 REWE RETAILERS ACROSS GERMANY ARE FACING AN EXISTENTIAL CHALLENGE.

While the competition is still busy distributing flyers, REWE is missing a fundamental communication component for the local offers of its retailers. Localised media such as digital, social or outdoor help to compensate for this. However, availability alone is not enough to compensate for the flyer. So, we need to rethink local. To get ahead of the competition.

1) MAXIMISE THE AWARENESS OF THE APP.

"Goodbye paper flyers, hello digital offers!" In one of the biggest integrated campaigns of recent years, we present the app as the new centrepiece of offer communication. We emphasise the message ("hello digital offers”) with a special focus on 'hello moments'.

2) HOMEWORK DONE? TIME TO RE-INVENT “LOCAL COMMUNICATION”!

To continue reaching people with relevant offers (also the ones who don’t use the app yet), we must first do the obvious: massive local communication per each retailer through social, digital, outdoor and radio. All channels that are known for their ability to regionalise messages. This is classic media craftsmanship.

But we are going further where no one has thought of a local approach before! Thus, we bring local offers of more than 2,000 retailers to television for the first time. Individually, always based on the nearest REWE market.

OUR WAY INTO A NEW ERA OF FLYER-FREE OFFER COMMUNICATION... WITH TWO FIRST MOVERS.

1) CONTEXTUAL FIT THROUGH PLACEMENTS IN "HELLO MOMENTS" CONVINCE USERS OF THE APP.

On TV, “overlay-ads” in moments of “hello’s” (e.g. in daily soaps) create contextual proximity. Outdoor placements create the same effect for commuters in the morning. The highlight is a digital outdoor first mover at two major railway stations: situationally adapted creatives, targeting arriving trains.

2) LOCAL OFFERS ON NATIONAL TV

We create a new infrastructure with a direct connection to a product-data-feed that uses AI to automatically, dynamically and in real time place up to 100,000 products on TV every week. Hyper-local advertising on the big screen, always based on each viewer's nearest market. For the first time ever, we are able to use the enormous reach of national TV for local communication. THIS IS UNIQUE IN THE WORLD!

TWO CHALLENGES, THREE ACHIEVEMENTS:

1. The integrated campaign, and in particular the "hello moments" of our Switch campaign, motivates 61% more people to use the app. And more than one in three downloaded the app.

2. The hyperlocal TV campaign for REWE retailers increases the likelihood of buying in the nearest REWE store by +34% (71% overall).

THE SWITCH BRINGS A DECISIVE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

Marketing Germany did not expect this: The most extensive and complex REWE campaign of all time generated a POSITIVE SALES TREND compared to the competition (+0.6pp) in the first few months - and this completely without an offer flyer. In the context of a market worth 180 billion euros, this effect is massive!

A new era in offer communication.

And we ushered it in.