GB: Sainsbury's reviews its creative account - How did the retailer do under the incumbent agency?

GB: Sainsbury's reviews its creative account - How did the retailer do under the incumbent agency?

Lesley Simeon - February 14th, 2023

Sainsbury's is reviewing its creative account and has reportedly engaged in conversations with agencies over the past two weeks. Incumbent agency, Wieden & Kennedy London (which took charge of the retailer’s £60 million ad account in August 2016) will not be repitching. The supermarket chain’s creative agency of record for nearly seven years, Wieden & Kennedy (W&K) held the account through the pandemic as well as the cost-of-living crisis.

How did Sainsbury's fare with W&K handling its creatives?

Since winning the account in August 2016, Wieden & Kennedy has worked on a number of campaigns for the supermarket chain, including several of the retailer’s annual Christmas-season ads. Most recently, the agency worked on a rebrand for Sainsbury’s in 2021.

According to YouGov BrandIndex - which tracks consumer sentiment towards thousands of brands daily - Sainsbury’s Ad Awareness scores have remained more or less unchanged since 2016. The metric - which indicates how many and which consumers are noticing the brand’s advertising - grew from 24% in 2016 to 27% in the year after, 2017. As of 1 January 2023, the retailer’s Ad Awareness score stood at 23%.

The brand’s Quality metric - which measures whether the brand represents poor or good quality – improved from a net score of 44 in 2016 to 47 in 2023.

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Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day.

Sainsbury's Ad Awareness score is based on the question: Which of the following supermarkets have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks? and delivered as a percentage. Its Quality score is based on the question: Which of the following supermarkets do you think represents good quality/poor quality? and delivered as a net score between –100 and +100. Its Index score is an overall measure of brand health, made up of General Impression, Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Value, Corporate Reputation and Recommendation and delivered as a net score between –100 and +100.  Scores are based on an average daily sample size of 29876 GB adults between 1 January 2016 and 9 February 2023. Figures are based on a yearly periodicity. Learn more about BrandIndex.

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash