Morrisons

Overview

Founded more than a century ago in the North of England, Morrisons is the United Kingdom's fourth-largest food retailer. After going public in 1967, Morrisons enjoyed 36 years of unbroken sales and profit growth to become a darling of the stock market. In 2003 Morrisons bought Safeway to expand its reach into the southern regions of England, and subsequently fell dramatically from grace. Management needed to stop the seemingly inexorable decline in market share.

Challenge

From 2004 to 2006 the company focused on integrating the Safeway acquisition but failed to articulate a clear position of difference for the expanded Morrisons. In short, a Safeway becoming a Morrisons was bad news for customers since the preexisting Morrisons was seen as a regional brand with little nationwide positioning. By 2007 Morrisons' objective was to reposition itself as "the food specialist for everyone," an unoccupied niche among British supermarkets. Landor was asked to review the logo but the project developed into a major rebranding program. Our task was to create a new brand promise that customers would experience through all the retailer's actions, behaviors, and communications.

Solution

Landor went well beyond the original brief: We created the brand's look and feel; defined the brand's personality, visual identity, and verbal tone; developed the in-store experience; and addressed own-label strategy and packaging design. The relaunch touched 350+ stores, 17,000 SKUs, and more than 100,000 staff. The company not only halted its market share decline but reversed it to increase from 11.1 percent to 11.6 percent, a move worth £350 million. The work won a Gramia award and a gold at the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards. Additionally, in the six weeks from 22 November 2009 to 3 January 2010 total sales (excluding fuel) rose by 11.2 percent. The business objective was achieved, and Morrisons became the fastest-growing supermarket chain in Britain.