Lidl recently launched a new communications campaign known as the Lidl Micromarket in Sweden, the idea being to encourage its most loyal customers to host a 100% Lidl meal for friends at home.
Open a small Lidl store at home and you, too, could become a ‘Lidler’! This is the unique opportunity that the German brand has decided to offer its most loyal customers in Sweden. The Lidl Micromarket is based on the concept of offering regular customers the opportunity to become ambassadors for the brand by hosting a 100% Lidl meal at home with friends who are not yet convinced by the brand’s promise to be “high on quality, low on price”. And fear not, for the brand has everything you need for this cosy meal with friends covered, from fresh food for a 3-course meal for up to 6 people to Lidl-branded clothing, baseball caps and store signs and even a Spotify playlist!
This is a fine example of Lidl’s strategy for making itself stand out from the competition in a country where the brand is battling for position behind long-standing players ICA AB and Co-op Food, banking on creativity rather than conceding to massive marketing expenses.
The Lidl Micromarket initiative portrays Lidl Sweden not only as a useful service provider, offering fresh food on a modest budget, but also as a pleasant store that can really help you to enjoy life with your loved ones.
Discover Lidl’s quality and low prices
The Lidl Micromarket drive-to-store campaign aims to enable more Swedes to discover the quality and low prices that Lidl offers. The initiative has all the ingredients of an influential marketing campaign, including a community of ambassadors that are being called on to evangelise their friends, a series of fun and quirky mini-ads on YouTube, and videos created by these ambassadors that will then be incorporated into the advertising campaign, among other things, all of which have proven to be effective tools that the brand is now using to boost its loyal customer base.
Using relational value to more effectively boost transaction value
The Lidl Micromarket campaign is a comprehensive and creative initiative that gives Lidlers and their friends the opportunity to enjoy some quality time together sampling good fresh produce – a cosy evening of indulgence that they will remember for a long time to come; a powerful experience that will fuel in some cases and inspire in others a certain attachment to the brand. Physical retail, albeit recreated here in a private home environment, is, of course, the ultimate setting for fostering such connections.
Lidl Sweden is therefore focusing on relational value in its attempts to more effectively boost transaction value, and if the gamble pays off, friends who were formerly skeptical will be shopping in-store themselves the next day.
Thierry Strickler, Retail Market Intelligence Lead at Altavia.