Do Morrisons need to scrap outdoor advertising and get digital to keep up with their counterparts, or is this actually a really clever digital strategy already?
Sculptor Antony Gormley is pretty annoyed, as struggling supermarket Morrisons has projected a giant image of a baguette onto the wings of the Statue of the North, a piece of art that he created to commemorate coal miners that previously worked under the site. The projection is part of the supermarket’s campaign to win back customers, particularly from discounters Aldi and Lidl. It cut prices on 1,200 items by an average of 17% on 1 May.
“I’d rather the Angel is not used for such purposes, but it’s out there,” said Gormley, who does not deal with copyright matters connected to the sculpture. Many others have spoken out against the campaign. Grace Dent described the projection as “a grotesque billboard flogging crusty white bloomers.”
Morrisons have said of the projection: “We’re sorry if you thought we got carried away with our latest marketing. We were trying to have some fun and didn’t mean to offend anybody.”
It seems that Morrissons need to scrap outdoor advertising and get digital to boost sales whilst their revenue is dropping, in order to keep with other UK supermarkets such as Tesco and M&S, who have prioritised digital strategies of marketing that interact with customers over more archaic methods. It’s interesting, however, that the campaign has gone viral without Morrisons implementing any kind of digital strategy alongside it (the image was just projected onto the statue and nowhere else). We are the Twitter generation, and therefore our opinions about the incident, no matter if positive or negative, are increasing awareness of the supermarket itself.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
More about:
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceThe Merkle B2B 2023 Superpowers Index outlines what drives competitive advantage within the business culture and subcultures that are critical to succ...
View resourceMaking forecasts and predictions in such a rapidly changing marketing ecosystem is a challenge. Yet, as concerns grow around a looming recession and b...
View resourceAgentic commerce and GEO are coming fast, but JD Sports argues the real advantage is operational: clean data and order management that keeps the custo...
View articleAt an NRF session, Dhruv Grewal shared results from a four-year study of 237 in-store digital signage campaigns using randomized A B testing and 30 mi...
View articleClickZ sat down with Row House and Fitizens founder Debra Strougo to explore the strategies, customer shifts, and partnership models that will define ...
View articleUber is turning trip and takeout data into a new planning input for brands. Its Uber Intelligence platform promises richer real world insight for mark...
View articleTechnology for Marketing 2025 carried one clear message: marketers are done with noise, they want results. From simplifying martech to rethinki...
View articleIn this exclusive interview ahead of Retail Media Pioneers, Rudolf Schneider of Amazon Advertising shares how his team is evolving retail media strate...
View articleExplosive E-Commerce Growth and Loyal Fans ThirdLove has quietly become a powerhouse in online intimate apparel, with its e-commerce revenues surgin...
View articleStructured data gives marketers the clarity to make informed decisions and turn raw information into actionable insights. Read More...
View article
I think Morrisons should be commended for a nice quirky bit of creative. Its hardly a “fiasco” because an artist gets sniffy that his work has been appropriated – would he have complained if he’d received a royalty? As for being offensive well it isn’t as offensive as Gail Porter’s tits being projected onto Parliament. And if it had been a local Greggs Pasty this would have been seen as cheeky Geordie humour. So lets give Morrisons a break.