The Objective
Overcoming changing preferences & competition
Kroger Precision Marketing, powered by 84.51°, taps into purchase data from 60 million households from 2,800 stores in 35 states to create holistic campaigns across an expanded digital ecosystem. The offerings include on-site advertising on Kroger.com, co-branded digital media across the Web, and a word-of-mouth platform which reaches Kroger's most loyal customers with new products to better understand customer opinions and acquire user-generated content.
Faced with changing consumer preferences for out-of-home food and dining experiences and increasing competition from e-commerce grocery retailers like Amazon, Kroger kicked off its Restock Kroger Plan in 2018.
The Solution
The "Restock Kroger" initiative
The Restock Kroger Plan is an accelerated three-year strategic plan designed to leverage data and technology around pricing, personalized communications with customers, and changes to its product assortments to deliver an elevated customer experience online and in-store.
As a part of this initiative, KPM wanted to launch co-branded influencer marketing programs at scale that leveraged multiple channels to connect with customers, delivering against key objectives such as accelerating the impact of new product launches, amplifying in-store promotions, or driving long-term sales growth.
Three campaign goals
This campaign had three main objectives:
- Scale Content to Drive Inspiration & Discovery: Generate high volumes of influencer content that drives discovery across digital platforms and meets the functional, emotional and inspirational needs of the Kroger customer.
- Create Differentiated Experiences through Content Curation: Curate content across Kroger-owned properties to develop customized experiences for key customer segments, including targeted recipes and promotional offers.
- Increase Campaign Scale to Create an Alternative Revenue Stream: Develop a competitive co-branded influencer marketing offering for CPGs to drive intent, preference and traffic at Kroger stores.
The marketing strategy
To deliver on its core objectives to drive inspiration and discovery, create differentiated experiences, as well as develop an alternative revenue stream, KPM developed an always-on influencer marketing strategy around five core content initiatives:
- Product Content
- Recipe & Video Content
- Complementary Products
- Personal Stories
- User-Generated Content
Macro-influencers were activated on a scale of 5-50 influencers per campaign to create original blog and video content that was then shared across social platforms. Micro-influencers were activated on a scale of 100 – 200 influencers per campaign to create original posts and stories on Instagram.
High-performing influencer-generated content was then amplified via paid social and across Kroger's owned media assets (ie. owned social, brand website, and email).
The Results
300+ successful campaigns
Working with Later Influence, Later’s influencer marketing platform, Kroger Performance Marketing scaled to 302 co-branded influencer marketing campaigns – with 5.4K influencer posts published on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and blogs – in one year.
302
Influencer Campaigns
5.4k
Pieces of Content
110m
Total Impressions
2.3m
Total Engagements
These campaigns resulted in:
- 110 M impressions and 2.3 engagements earned on influencer content;
- 3,210 hours saved using Later's platform for influencer activation and measurement; and
- $183k content production cost savings.