1. Market situation

Delhaize is one of the leading food retailers in the Belgian market, offering higher value at a higher price point. After losing its way for six years, in which it lost market share and suffered from a diluted brand identity, the retailer made a big strategic shift in 2018. This metamorphosis needs no large introduction. The last years Delhaize successfully managed to differentiate itself in the market by becoming 'the healthy retailer'. This move has had positive impact on the brand's market share.

However, Delhaize hasn't been prancing around like everything's polka dots and moonbeams. The first engine of the retail category remains price, it's still the #1 driver for churn and virtually the whole competitive environment is playing this card. In this playing field, Delhaize was still perceived as too expensive and doomed to lose the war against the price fighters.

2. Objectives

Delhaize had to break out of the conventional promo-focused market and fortify relationships with its key audiences, giving them less reasons to churn. All this without just senselessly upping promotions and opening a public price war. With Colruyt always comparing and matching prices, this would mean punching ourselves in the face.

The big ambition was to disrupt the market by introducing a new & break-through loyalty system that individually rewarding and stimulates customers to eat healthier: SuperPlus.

1. LARGE SCALE ADOPTION
   Stepping into the new SuperPlus program demanded an active effort from the client. There was no auto-migration possible (GDPR). The business success of SuperPlus was hence directly linked to the speed of adoption by the clients. Moreover, in order for the loyalty program to be personalized, subscribers needed to subscribe with e-mail address as mandatory (which was not the case for Plus Program) and give consent to use their data. This was a huge challenge, because for the old Plus-program, only 4% was digitally mailable.
   
   
2. INCREASE HEALTHY BUYING BEHAVIOUR
   In line with our positioning as the healthy retailer, the goal was to create real behavioral change and make them do their entire grocery shopping at Delhaize whilst stimulating them to buy healthier products.
   
   
3. PRICE PERCEPTION & BRAND POSITIONING
   Traditional loyalty programs are a way to launch promotions for loyal clients. But by launching SuperPlus, Delhaize wanted to achieve 2 other goals:
   • Improve the price perception. With SuperPlus, Delhaize wanted to improve its price perception and have a voice in the fierce price debate.
   • Support the brand positioning in the domain of health.

3. Strategy

Loyalty programs are widely misunderstood, often conventionally used as generic short-term promotional tools, resulting in tactical approaches. Our outdated Plus program needed to evolve from a conventional card approach, stuck in a one-size-fits-all e-CRM disconnected from Delhaize's larger media eco-system to a personalized loyalty system that helps you eat healthier.

Essentially, this is done by giving them a personalized discounts (5%-10%-15%) on healthy products. Moreover, they all get exclusive promos based on their buying behavior. Apart from giving them a price incentive, the program also makes healthy eating easier by enabling customers to track their healthy discounts and access their "Nutri-Profile", giving them an overview of their healthy buying behavior as well as inspiration for healthier product alternatives.

For the launch campaign we logically decided to put health central, strived to create big buzz around our renewed pricing philosophy and aimed to maximize conversion throughout the funnel.

Converting as much clients as possible was hyper-important because with SuperPlus, Delhaize made an important chess move towards its competitors. Delhaize stopped competing on generic shelf prices and created a new price paradigm: being the most affordable retailer for people who decide to eat healthier. By going fully personal with its pricing, it would make it impossible for the price fighters (i.e., Colruyt) to simply compare and adapt. Importantly, by making pricing personal, Delhaize didn't feed a negative price spiral in the market and didn't destroy value in the market.

4. Results

Behavioral results

1. LARGE SCALE ADOPTION
   
   KPI 2A: Convert 40% (860K) of current active card members to SuperPlus in the first 3 months, reaching 1.091.000 people to subscribe by the end of 2020, with minimum 25% of them being active users (i.e., use app once a month).
   Delhaize managed to get 1.394.960 clients to register by the end of 2020, exceeding the initial KPI of 1.091.000 by far.
   
   KPI 2B: Increase app downloads from 50K to 280K in the first 3 months, with 85% of app users to give their personal consent to receive personalized offers and recommendations.

   While the goal was to increase app downloads from 50K to 280K, 1.011.947 customers downloaded the app at the end of 2020, exceeding all initial expectations. The app became #1 in the app store for several weeks. And more importantly, 87% of app users also gave their consent to use their data.

2. HEALTHY BUYING BEHAVIOR
   
   KPI 3: Increase the average basket size of healthy products and support customers in eating healthier vs same period LY.
   Overall average basket size increased as (+8% vs same period LY), proving they are also more loyal and thus shop more categories at Delhaize, increasing their total basket amount. Healthy sales increased +3,5%.
   

Perceptional results

3. PRICE PERCEPTION & BRANDING POSITIONING
   
   KPI 4: Widen the brand gap with competition on our positioning of being a healthy retailer & positively bend price perceptions.
   Delhaize managed to successfully position SuperPlus as the loyalty program supporting a healthy lifestyle, surpassing all competitors in this area. Moreover, thanks to SuperPlus, Delhaize boosted its perception of offering attractive deals on healthy products. Based on these two parameters, it's clear the campaign successfully managed to further increase Delhaize's position as the healthy retailer..