‘Every Little Helps’ BBH and MediaCom Bag IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix for Tesco

BBH and MediaCom were awarded the advertising industry’s top accolade, the prestigious IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix, at a virtual awards ceremony this evening (Monday 12th October) for transforming Tesco’s business and adding £4.3bn incremental revenue between 2015 and 2019.

They embarked on a five-year strategy for a total business turnaround following Tesco’s 2015 nadir; when it recorded of the biggest loss of a retailer in UK history, and the brand’s lowest ever scores in customer trust. This was achieved by focusing on three clear goals; rebuilding trust, repairing quality perception through an emphasis on food and restoring value perceptions; and using the age-old strategy of putting the customer at the front and centre of the business.

Tesco’s new purpose of ‘Serving Britain’s Shoppers a little Better Every Day’ required significant creative changes. This involved placing Tesco customers and staff front and centre of campaigns, including a modern interpretation of ‘The Tesco Family’, to communicate Tesco’s focus on helpfulness and extended to providing meaningful, helpful acts for customers such as the removal of the tampon tax. The new focus yielded instant results with improvements in branding, cut-through and likeability. The second phase of Tesco’s new creative identity involved focusing on ‘the food you love to make for the people you love’. This was borne out through ‘Food Love Stories, brought to you by Tesco’ – a series of tales that used food to deliver love, and celebrating treat night indulgences through Tesco Finest.

Tesco rebalanced its media investment to support campaigns with long-term objectives, and focused on winning share of voice. Practically this meant changing the media mix to better reflect people’s changing media consumption - down-weighting print and up-weighting digital spend. A long term approach was taken to Food Love Stories allowing them to unfold, evolve and be retold. In practice this meant amplifying the tastiest stories through TV, Radio and OOH’s ability to drive national reach and build brand; making stories personal through insight-led segmentation by meal type, occasions and family make-up; and bringing ideas to life in helpful ways in stores and owned media estimated to be worth £147m in annual media value.

The inside-out approach to rebuilding relationships, including with over 330,000 employees and 17 million Clubcard members, combined with re-affirming ‘Every Little Helps’ as a promise to customers drove remarkable results, enabling Tesco to post its highest Trust, Quality and Value scores in nearly a decade alongside business profits of £2.21bn.

Simon Gregory and Will Lion, joint chief strategy officers, at BBH London, said: "We've always said that 'Our objective is effectiveness, our strategy is creativity' and our IPA successes over the last four years on a range of clients from Tesco and Audi to Barclays, Weetabix and Heinz shows that this spirit is alive. We can't wait to do the same for more brands." 

Other key results included:

* +640% increase in brand index score


* +28.2% increase in like-for-like sales


* A shift from losses of £6.4bn to a profit of £2.21bn in five years


* Every £1 invested in marketing returning £13.65


Says Stevie Spring, chairman of judges and chairman of the British Council: “I have known the IPA Effectiveness Awards are the most demanding advertising awards to win since working in agencies that entered - and won - them during the Eighties and Nineties. Now I have been Chairman of the Awards, I can say they are also the most demanding to judge.

“Congratulations to Tesco on their 2020 IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix. They demonstrated forensically how a renewed focus on customers drove Tesco’s turnaround. Then-CEO Dave Lewis and his team proved that ‘Every Little Helps’ is not just a marketing end line, but a promise that's been delivered throughout the organisation. Setting, and delivering on, this kind of ambition for marketing is what makes an IPA Effectiveness Award so hard to win – yet so worth winning.”

Says Sue Unerman, convenor of judges and chief transformation officer, MediaCom: “BBH and MediaCom have driven a truly incredible turnaround for one of Britain’s biggest retailers. The complexity of challenge and complexity of solution are amazing, showing how brand thinking can drive wholesale change across a big business and that marketing can be much deeper than communications & drive business transformation.

“It is a fantastic reminder that sometimes going back to the basics of putting your customer first, combined with outstanding creative and strategy, can bring exceptional, game-changing results. Congratulations to all involved, and principle authors Simon Gregory and James Parnum in particular.”

In addition to the Grand Prix, BBH were also named Effectiveness Company of the Year, picking up two Gold and one Silver Award in total.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards are the world’s most rigorous and prestigious Awards scheme with entrants having to prove the payback of their communications activity. In total five gold, six silver and 14 bronze prizes, along with 10 special prizes, were awarded to companies internationally, including in Australia, Canada, mainland Europe and the UK.

All winning case studies are available to download from the IPA website or from WARC.

The 2020 IPA Effectiveness Awards are sponsored by Facebook, Google, Marsh, Newsworks, System 1, Thinkbox and Warc.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards kick off the EffWorks Global 2020 Conference, which will feature an industry leading line-up of marketing effectiveness experts and cultural commentators present a mix of new effectiveness R&D, unique case studies, keynotes, panels and live Q&A’s across four afternoons of content, including an in-depth session looking at the Grand Prix paper, where Journalist and Broadcaster Samira Ahmed will be discussing the winning campaign with Deputy Awards Convenor and CSO McCann Worldgroup EMEA Harjot Singh, at 14:00 on Wednesday (14th October) and additional Effectiveness Awards sessions throughout the Conference..

Full list of 2020 IPA Effectiveness Awards Winners:

Special Prizes:

• Grand Prix (sponsored by Thinkbox): Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From running shops to serving customers: The Tesco turnaround story

• Effectiveness Network of the Year: MullenLowe Group

• Effectiveness Company of the Year: BBH

• The Simon Broadbent Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness (sponsored by System 1): Audi

• The President’s Prize for Best Contribution to Effectiveness through Technology: SickKids (Sick Kids Foundation) by Cossette - SickKids vs. Conventional fundraising

• The Channon Prize for Best New Learning (sponsored by Newsworks): Diageo portfolio by Diageo - Marketing Catalyst: Creating a culture of marketing effectiveness

• The Tim Broadbent Prize for Best International (sponsored by Google): Central Coast (Tourism Central Coast) by AFFINITY - Building a big billion dollar tourism brand through ‘Little Adventures’

• Best Multi-Market (sponsored by Marsh): Guinness (Diageo) by AMV BBDO - Guinness Made of More 2012-2019: Consistency x creativity

• Best Small Budget (sponsored by Facebook): KFC by Ogilvy Australia - Michelin Impossible: How an Aussie underdog took on the food establishment

• Best Use of Data (sponsored by WARC): Diageo portfolio by Diageo - Marketing Catalyst: Creating a culture of marketing effectiveness


Gold winners:

• Audi by BBH - The value of Vorsprung durch Technik over four decades

• Diageo portfolio by Diageo - Marketing Catalyst: Creating a culture of marketing effectiveness

• Guinness (Diageo) by AMV BBDO - Guinness Made of More 2012-2019: Consistency x creativity

• John Lewis & Partners by adam&eveDDB and Manning Gottlieb OMD - John Lewis: An amazing decade

• Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From running shops to serving customers: The Tesco turnaround story


Silver winners:

• Baileys (Diageo) by Mother and Carat - From forgotten icon to global treat

• Central Coast (Tourism Central Coast) by AFFINITY - Building a big billion dollar tourism brand through ‘Little Adventures’

• Gordon’s Gin (Diageo) by Diageo & Anomaly London - Legacy brand turned challenger: Doubling the size of a legacy brand by thinking like a challenger

• Heinz [Seriously] Good Mayonnaise (Kraft Heinz) by BBH - How Heinz [Seriously] Good Mayonnaise overcame the 'difficult second stage of launch' syndrome

• SickKids (Sick Kids Foundation) by Cossette - SickKids vs. Conventional fundraising

• Volvo (Volvo Cars UK) by Grey London and Mindshare - A defiantly Human success story


Bronze winners:

• Aldi UK by McCann Manchester and Gain Theory - Aldi 2010-2019: How taking an alternative path took Aldi from shame to pride

• Cotswold Co. by Creature - A leap beyond optimisation

• Formula 1 by Ogilvy - Unlocking the value of direct-to-fan for Formula 1

• Heineken 0.0 by Heineken, Publicis Italy and Starcom NL - Taking Heineken 0.0 to the parts other beers cannot reach

• KFC by Ogilvy Australia - Michelin Impossible: How an Aussie underdog took on the food establishment

• Lloyds Bank (Lloyds Banking Group) by adam&eveDDB and MediaCom - Lloyds Bank: The power of Pure Brand

• NHS England by MullenLowe London, MullenLowe Open and Mediahub UK - We are the NHS

• PPI Deadline (Financial Conduct Authority) by M&C Saatchi and Manning Gottlieb OMD - Billions to millions

• Royal Navy by ENGINE and Wavemaker London - Building a brand fit for the biggest decision of your life: Made in the Royal Navy

• Tango (Britvic) by VCCP - Rescuing Tango from a Sticky Situation

• The Campaign Against Living Miserably by adam&eveDDB - Breaking the silence: How an image, not an ad transformed the way the UK treats male suicide

• Truth Project (Independent Inquiry into Childhood Sexual Abuse – IICSA) by MullenLowe London and Bray Leino - Making the unspeakable speakable

• wagamama by MullenLowe London and the7stars - Stirring souls and selling bowls the wagamama way, through the secret power of cinema

• WaterAid by The Kite Factory - A partnership that has saved five million children’s lives and built a new model for fundraising