Dive Brief:

• Last month, Raley’s launched a multimedia campaign that highlights its personalized shopping service through its click-and-collect program, which it has provided for more than 15 years.
• According to online consultancy Brick Meets Click, this is the first time a brick and mortar retailer has put so much emphasis on marketing online grocery that focuses on something other than saving time or offering no fees. 
• The two short videos aim to convince shoppers that shopping online is “like shopping in the store” but they can do it from the comfort of their own home and have Raley’s personal shopper to create a customized shopping experience for them.

Dive Insight:

Grocery click-and-collect has been around for quite some time, especially at Raley’s, but grocers are notorious for steering clear of big, flashy advertisements and instead take baby steps to promote online shopping.

This is understandable, given how elusive profitability is in food retail e-commerce. But according to Brick Meets Click, investing in effective marketing that addresses how online grocery fits into consumers' lifestyles could boost adoption. 

"The adoption of online shopping is growing more slowly in grocery than in most other areas of retail – partly because traditional grocery shopping habits are well established, and partly because there are things about grocery shopping that many people still enjoy, even if it’s seen as a chore," the firm wrote in a blog post. "For these reasons, just making online shopping available isn’t enough to get many shoppers to try it or shift to this new mode of shopping. Raley's videos are based on research that generated greater understanding into how customers and noncustomers shop for groceries online."

This method of marketing highlights the human element of grocery shopping and makes the experience more personal. According to Brick Meets Click, consumers need a nudge in the right direction to understand the benefits of this new shopping technique before they will actually try it. 

Across the industry, grocers are developing multimedia marketing campaigns. In September, Aldi aired a new ad campaign that featured a series of commercials focused on the company's wide selection of high-quality products at a value price. Shop n’ Save also recently aired a humorous ad campaign focused on customer experience and connecting with customers while Lidl pushed out video campaigns that highlighted the inefficiencies of traditional supermarkets through TV, radio and digital ads.

It's interesting grocers are just now turning to video ad campaigns when TV viewership is on the decline, especially among millennials —  the target customer for grocery e-commerce. Video campaigns are an expensive gamble since they don’t typically have a big payoff for grocers and it cuts into their relatively small advertising budget. But seeing that digital campaigns and in-store signage are not moving the dial as much as retailers would like, it’s worth the gamble.