https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/research/case-studies/iceland-power-frozen (ITV Media 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Q057wTVQk (YouTube 2015)

In this report, the marketing communication strategy of the Private Limited UK supermarket

chain Iceland, will be analysed in detail (Company Check 2015). Iceland is one of the UK’s most successful supermarket brands, with sales of £2.697 Billion as of June 2015 (Iceland Topco LTD 2015). With cash balances increasing to £163 Million, 28 net new stores opened

across the UK and Ireland as well as Iceland ranking in the top ten best British companies to work for, for the fifth year running. It is clear that Iceland are a major game player within the

UK, in the Food & Beverage Retail Industry (Iceland Topco LTD 2015). To understand more about Iceland as a brand, Keller’s brand pyramid can be used. This brand

pyramid can be seen in Appendix 1A and is often referred to as Keller’s Customer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model (Keller 2001). This model includes six building blocks, used to

identify the four steps of a brand, these include brand identity, brand meaning, brand responses and the brand relationships (Keller 2001). Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism, Appendix 1B (Andreea 2013), can also be used to help create Iceland’s own Brand Identity

Model seen in Appendix 1C (User Generated 2015).

In conclusion to this user generated table, Appendix 1C. It is clear that Iceland have a strong brand identity. The logo is bright, bold and cheerful that would catch anyone’s eye with its contrasting gradient colours. Its fun and loving personality emphasised by family man and

celebrity Peter Andre goes hand in hand with this brands relationship of being heavily charity focused, founding its own charity, raising money and actively sending out letters shows that

Iceland are not all about profit (About Iceland 2015). Iceland defiantly seem to have a large share of the food and beverage industry attracting the clientele of families/ middle aged

Kotler (1997) cited by Frain (1999: p.223) defined Brand as “A name, term, sign, symbol

or design or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors”. The brand

investigated in this report will be Iceland Foods LTD.

shoppers. Ultimately, Iceland’s perception from customers and of itself seem to be positive, with its spokes man Nick Canning clearly stating how Iceland has a friendly and easy

environment to shop in, thus winning many awards, keeping the customer and its quality products close to there hearts (Iceland Report 2015). The brand really does seem to be flourishing, this made apparent by the opening of 850 stores throughout the UK (Iceland

Report 2015).

The campaign focused on in this report is Iceland’s multimedia campaign, with the war cry being, The Power of Frozen. The ads were created by London advertising agency Karmarama

and are set to run across all media for 11 weeks (Foodbev Media 2015). The campaign featuring, and narrated by celebrity brand ambassador, Peter Andre, was aggressively aired across the full 3.5-minute ad break of the ITV show, Britain’s Got Talent, aired on the 23rd of

May 2015 (ITV Media 2015). This airing was the climax of the 3-month campaign, a well positioned advertising slot for Iceland as the show saw nearly 12 Million TV viewers tune in,

taking a 48% stake of all UK views, making Britain’s Got Talent the most viewed show of 2015, to date (Oaks 2015). In the flag ship ad aired, Iceland opened and closed with its brand ambassador, also featuring many frozen food products advertised throughout the campaign

from Brands such as Birds Eye, Young’s and Magnum (ITV Media 2015). Brands that are sold within the Iceland supermarket stores. User generated research has shown that these

brands are all placed next to each other on the supermarket shelves creating links with this ad. The 3.5-minute campaign closes with the full length smaller TV campaign advert that is shown across ITV’s day time showings (ITV Media 2015).

The Power of Frozen was a follow on campaign from Iceland’s previous campaign tag lined

you’ll be amazed what you find at Iceland (Faull 2015). The current campaign aims to turn people’s negative views around over the subject of frozen foods, with the belief that frozen foods are all quick and easy ready meals, which are deeply unhealthy. Iceland wants to

highlight the fact that by freezing produce, it preserves the authentic flavours (Faull 2015). A spokesman for Iceland stated that the marketing campaigns core proposition “is the message

that by freezing food as soon as it has been picked, caught or prepared, the taste and quality is at a premium” (Foodbev Media 2015). Quotes from the campaign include “fresh baked pizzas from the wood-fired ovens of Italy”, “cold-water prawns from the North Atlantic” and

“authentic smooth gelato from Verona” (Foodbev 2015). This is Iceland’s attempt in changing the audience’s perception of frozen food, stating that the food is fresh and that by

freezing, allows fresh food and authentic flavour to be accessed from all over the world, right here in the UK. This campaign has been further celebrity indorsed as a result of a deal secured with Holly Bell (Faull 2015). A star off The Great British Bake-off, a show that

attracted 13.5 million viewers taking the crown from Britain’s got Talent in being the most viewed show of 2015 (Sweney 2015). Holly Bell’s deal with Iceland has seen a published

cook book for frozen recipes and hosted a YouTube cookery series (Faull 2015).

This campaign has not just helped the public sector retail industry, but also the commercial industry. Iceland’s new concept store, a bulk buy frozen food outlet, targeting the commercial

industry. The company, named The Food Warehouse, is double the size of its retailer Iceland stores and offers extended product ranges. Since the campaign launch, this business has also seen sales increase, by 3.4% in 12 weeks (Faull 2015).

This campaign was a multimedia one, broadcasted across Television Screens, Social Media,

Radio Promotion, Video on Demand and out-door drops (Foodbev 2015). Managing director of Iceland LTD, Nick Canning, stated “Iceland will be reaching a much broader audience

than ever before and re-capturing the minds of consumers with confidence and passion. We devised this campaign to demonstrate the benefits of frozen food and also to showcase the provenance of our product portfolio.” (Iceland Report 2015). Furthermore, Iceland intend to

experiment with a practical Out-Of-Home nationwide advertising tour, showcasing its top products (Foodbev 2015).

However, TV and Social Media advertising are Iceland’s main focus. The 10, 30 and 60-second-long ads were shown across ITV1, ITV2, FIVE, Sky1, Living and Atlantic (Iceland

Report 2015). With reference to figure 1, Iceland can clearly be identified as previously being the largest spender on

Television advertising when compared to the UK’s leading grocers. By investigating

further into the demographics of the channels Iceland

broadcast on, Figure 2 clearly indicates that the majority of the demographic that view

these channels are females aged around 35 or above

(Ofcom 2012). This suggests that Iceland’s target market is of the working woman,

particularly mums who are in charge of food shopping,

ultimately deciding which supermarket chain to do the family shop. This is evidenced further by Iceland’s previous revival campaign in 2014 featuring the tagline and target audience, That’s why mums go to

Iceland (Hobbs 2014).

As Figure 1 (Mintel 2014) well as being advertised in the ad break of Britain’s Got Talent, a show which main audience is family households.

Figure 2 (Ofcom 2012)

Duncan (2002) cited by Percy (2013: p.8) defined integrated marketing communications

(IMC) as "a cross-functional process for creating and nourishing profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders by strategically controlling or influencing all messages sent

to these groups and encouraging data-driven, purposeful dialogue with them". Investigating Iceland’s Social Media has shown a clear and well thought out integrated marketing communication Strategy, throughout its TV Ads, using Peter Andre as spokesman, and across

all forms of Social Media platforms. These include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Iceland’s social media advertising creates strong links with the TV Ads because the TV ads are uploaded on the Facebook page so the audience can watch it at any time. The TV adverts

also incorporate the Social Media hashtag #poweroffrozen that can be seen at the bottom right of the TV screen, all designed to get the public talking. By studying figures 3, 4 and 5, it is

clear that Iceland’s fan base is huge, represented in the numerical amount of likes/ followers each platform has, also notice the posts, updated daily with information and imagery, all incorporating the #poweroffrozen hashtag to keep brand unity/identity and to engaged the

audience resulting in higher levels of brand loyalty. Customer interaction via social media networks seems to be a key part of this campaign, this is evidenced the most when looking at

figure 4, here shows the Facebook page of Iceland Foods, clearly stated are the contact details including; customer phone number, website and address with an average response time of 1 hour. Iceland also attach a link to other digital media platforms including the store finder app

(Facebook 2015). This all suggests that Iceland are making vital efforts, engaging with there cliental.

Figure 3 (Facebook 2015)

Figure 4 (Twitter 2015)

Figure 5 (Instagram 2015)

Figure 6a (Patterson 2015)

Figure 6b (Patterson 2015)

While Iceland invest most capital in advertising on TV, it is important to recognise that

Social Media is Iceland’s next big focus, below is data from figures 6a-6c stating the current demographics of Facebook, Twitter & Instagram from May 2015. By investigating

this further, it is interesting to see that despite social media being used by a much younger demographic, of ages between 18-29, most social media platforms are used majority more by females than males, this could suggest that Iceland are not only trying to appeal to the

middle aged working mums but to the younger woman, who will inevitably grow up to be the clientele they have marketed to in the past, and are currently marketing to now! The

differences in male to females using social media are significant on Platforms such as Facebook, with 10% more female use and Instagram, with 7% more female’s usage (Patterson 2015).

Figure 6c (Patterson 2015)

Over the years Iceland have used many celebrity brand ambassadors to promote their brand,

celebrities previously used include Kerry Katonah, Jason Donovan, Stacey Solomon and Pere Andre, seemingly Iceland’s favourite ambassador (Gopher 2015). However, continuing to use Peter Andre seems a risky tactic due to Mr Andre making a comment on ITV2’s Celebrity

Juice, hinting that featuring in Iceland’s Adverts were embarrassing, despite public outcry and calls for Andre to be sacked, Iceland tweeted on social media site, Twitter, that is was

clear he was joking (Pocklington 2014). However, often jokes surface from thoughts deep within, leaving many to speculate how much Andre respects the brand he is representing.

If Iceland wanted to continue its celebrity endorsement themed campaigns, then improvements could be made as to who they choose in the future. A good example for a new

ambassador would be Nigella Lawson, a British cook who has recently made a Television come back after a 3-year absence, hosting her new show Simply Nigella airing on BBC 2 and publishing a new cookery book (Furness 2015). By using Nigella, a middle aged female who

has had major life issues and a publicised court case would be appropriate in attracting Iceland’s target market of middle aged woman and mums, many of which could relate to

Nigella in the home styled way she cooks or in the life events she’s gone through, for example, a divorce (Furness 2015). By using Nigella could benefit Iceland’s sales as Nigella could be featured cooking many courses from frozen produce sold in the Iceland chain.

However, Iceland could improve its campaign further, by moving away from its historic use

of celebrity featured ads altogether, by exploring other channels such as the use of slice of life or humour could be an advantage, the most memorable ads tend to use humour and influence the audience far more than factual based ones (Levitt 2015). Iceland would not be

the first supermarket chain to use humour as its tone of voice. In 2011, Aldi won the most liked advert of the year award, for its gin loving pensioner ad that featured the tagline ‘I don’t

like tea, I like gin’ (Plunkett 2011). Nielsen’s Vice President for Advertiser Solutions stated “This is the year that relatable characters – people like you and me – replaced celebrities in the list of most-liked ads.” (Plunkett 2011). This provides strong evidence to support the fact

that Iceland should in fact, move away from celebrity indorsed ads and try to make a campaign that highlights the pleasure and fun of preparing, cooking and consuming the food

of its stores. On the other hand, it is important to realise humour may not always be the best style of ad to

use. The current campaign, the power of frozen, first aired on the 18th of May during ITV’s Coronation Street, used a serious factual tone of voice, in an attempt to turn people’s

perception of frozen food around, at the same time launching the new premium range the brand is offering (Iceland Report 2015). It is important to understand that while the use of humour is effective in improving brand recognition, it fails to improve product recall,

message credibility and buying intentions (Levitt 2015). In conclusion to this, Humour may not be the next logical tactic in Iceland’s next campaign line as it would conflict about the

seriousness of the frozen food industries future.

(Keller 2009)

(Andreea 2013)

(User Generated Research 2015)

In conclusion to this marketing analysis of Iceland, it is clear that this campaign has been a highly successful one. This campaign can be proven to be a positive one for Iceland as

we look into the stage Iceland is currently at now. With over 850 stores across the UK (Iceland Report 2015), and a further 28 to be opened (Iceland Topco LTD 2015) it is clear that the Iceland brand is gaining in popularity and is obviously expanding at a rapid rate,

this is reflected in their financial cash balances of an increase to £163 Million (Iceland Topco LTD 2015). Iceland’s partners including The Food Warehouse have also soon

growth of 3.4% in 12 weeks since this campaign aired (Faull 2015). However, when a brand like Iceland secures a 3-minute advertising slot in a show that attracts 48% of all UK viewings, its not surprising the growth has been so rapid (Oaks 2015). As a result of

this assignment, it is clear that the campaign has been a huge success and can be said with confidence that the future looks very bright for Iceland Foods.

ICELAND BRAND IDENTITY MODEL

PHYSIQUE

PERSONALITY

Logo: bold white

text, red to orange gradient

back ground.

Bright and eye

catching.

“It’s fabulous to have

Peter on board for another campaign. His friendly and

relaxed approach means he’s the perfect ambassador to show how

Iceland’s frozen ideas can inspire meal times and

make a real difference to family life.” – Nick Canning (Iceland Report

2015).

Relaxed, Happy, Confident with a drive to

push for sales and to make frozen food more accepted

in society.

RELATIONSHIP CULTURE

Donated £8,737,074 to

charities over 8 years.

Set up Charitable

Food Foundation.

Letter sent to Icelandic Prime

minister regarding CSR.

(About Iceland 2015)

Food & Beverage Industry.

Specialising in the frozen

food/ ready meal industry.

REFLECTION SELF IMAGE

Every day casual convenience

store.

Attracting mums/

middle aged woman.

“…award-winning leader in product innovation… recognized as one of the

country’s easiest, friendliest, and best value places to shop…Best Big

Company to Work for in the UK…, Iceland puts

innovation, quality and customer service at the

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