A fresh approach, out of the mouths of children

The improvised programme has won a host of awards for its cast and crew. Now it has inspired Morrisons' latest TV advertising campaign.

The Bradford-based supermarket group has decided to "rest" its celebrity-based format, featuring the likes of Richard Hammond, Alan Hansen and Denise Van Outen, and this week introduced the first of a new series of ads in which children are the central characters.

Angus Maciver, marketing and communications director, told the Yorkshire Post: "The celebrity campaign has been very successful for us. However, one of the things that's difficult to do sometimes is to explain that we really are the only place to do some of the things we do.

"We wanted to move the campaign on to point out our points of difference more freely than we could with celebrities. Celebrities did very well with 'fresh' and 'value' but they did not say 'only Morrisons'. The new part of the campaign is to say 'only Morrisons'."

Mr Maciver decided that the new ads should show people investigating what makes Morrisons different from its competitors. He decided against using celebrities and store staff to do the questioning – focus groups told the retailer they would be less inclined to believe the message – and opted to use children instead.

Some of the thinking behind the new ads came from Morrisons' experience with Farm Camp, a children's reality TV series commissioned by ITV and funded by Morrisons as part of its Let's Grow campaign, which was designed to educate children about the provenance of food.

In the show, children aged 9-12 swapped city living for country lifestyles and were set a series of challenges to prepare meals using fresh food.

In one of the tasks, some children went fishing while others went to dig up potatoes to make fish and chips. One of the children asked why they were looking for potatoes when they needed chips.

"Not linking the potato and the chip was fascinating," said Mr Maciver.

This idea of learning about the source of food was combined with inspiration from Outnumbered, "where children have fairly impromptu conversations which are challenging to the adult parents", said Mr Maciver.

He told DLKW, the London advertising agency which holds the Morrisons account, that he wanted to find a way to sharpen up the supermarket's point of difference message.

Mr Maciver said: "They came back with ideas and we sifted through them and alighted on this one. We have thoroughly tested it, not just with focus groups. Large numbers of people have seen it before it was screened and scored it for us. We are confident people will get a good message from it."

He said the new campaign does not reflect a change of emphasis for the big four supermarket giant, which has a new chief executive in Dalton Philips.

Mr Maciver said: "What competitors are historically good at is if anybody looks like they have an advantage, everybody else tries to copy you.

"We did a really good job of talking about fresh. Our competitors all tried to copy us in some sense.

"One of Sainsbury's ads has Jamie Oliver talking about how much fresh food they did, using our language. This (campaign] reflects the constant need to keep ahead of our competition."

Industry estimates suggest Morrisons spent 61m on advertising last year, up seven per cent on 2008.

Advertising spend has increased steadily over recent years as market share has grown, although this year's spend is likely to be "broadly in line" with 2009, said Mr Maciver.

The new campaign will be significantly cheaper than the previous one, having dispensed with celebrity fees. Richard Hammond, the Top Gear presenter, reportedly received 750,000 for four days' work on a Morrisons advert in 2008.

"The production cost is lower," said Mr Maciver, "but that is an incidental benefit, not the reason to change."

He added: "We are going to put out four stories altogether in the coming months.

"One is about 100 per cent British beef. Another is about how our butchers cut meat in store and put it on shelves in store.

"One is about fresh, not frozen, fish.

"The fourth is we are the only place where we take the whole salmon and cut it in store. These are some of the unique Morrisons stories that are coming out over the next couple of months."

Morrisons facts

Morrisons sells 100 per cent fresh British beef, pork, lamb and chicken.

It buys cattle, pigs and sheep direct from 325 livestock farms in Yorkshire.

It buys the whole animal direct from the farmer.

Morrisons owns a farm at Dumfries House in Scotland, which rears Aberdeen Angus, Beef Shorthorn and Scotch mule cattle and sheep.

It sells British carrots, broccoli, swede and cauliflower when in season.