It kicks off with a series of TV commercials, press inserts, in-store point of sale and social media.

The repositioning of the SPAR brand aims to refresh the conventional approach to retailer marketing and advertising, beyond just focusing on the functional attributes of price, quality, freshness and range.

“The customer sits at the core of our business and is integral to how we operate both within our internal structures and our external operations. Our business model allows retailers to support local businesses, to fashion their store around the community’s needs and to provide personal service” says Mike Prentice, Group Marketing Executive of SPAR Group Ltd South Africa, “This has resulted in a campaign that we feel talks to the customer and not at the customer.”

SPAR is a group of national independent, owner-managed retailers, serving millions of customers daily. Each store plays an active, participatory role in their community and prides itself on having an integral knowledge of the people which it serves, carrying stock which reflects its local community’s needs and preferences.

“The time has come to refresh the SPAR brand. We wanted to re-enforce the key role that our customers play in our business and communicate the close alignment and kinship we have with them,” says Prentice.

Justin McCarthy, Managing Director of TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Durban, says: “SPAR is all about people. Of the millions who shop at SPAR every day, many of them refer to the local store they frequent as 'My SPAR'. As a result, the repositioning of the brand has focused on the personal 'My SPAR' experience. We saw value in using real stories and insights into the brand from the everyday communities SPAR serves.”

“Customers from across the country were approached to tell us their stories of how SPAR has made a difference in their lives. We found thousands of wonderful, powerful stories, stories that authenticate 'My SPAR'; stories which needed to be shared.” The repositioning is not about SPAR advocating itself, but rather customers talking to other customers, which authenticates 'MY SPAR'.

The new TV ads are based on the real life stories of SPAR customers like Lindsay, whose staff at his local SPAR watch and hold his horse while he shops, and the Matcheke family who established a family-run waste business after being offered an opportunity by their local SPAR retailer. Then there’s Frans, who elected to use his local SPAR to propose to Natasha.

“These everyday stories were selected to be used for the new lead TV commercials featuring actual people, telling real stories about their SPAR within their community. Creatively this has allowed SPAR to engage with its customers on a personal level, talking about the things which are important to them not just functional attributes like convenience, price, and range,” says McCarthy.

Prentice concludes, “In supermarket marketing, the retailer is usually selling someone else’s product. However SPAR isn’t in the food business serving people, we are in the people business, serving food.”