Driving Digital Ecosystem Engagement With a Unified Message of #SLAM

Key Takeaways

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Messaging Strategy — Drive Digital Engagement With a Unified Positioning: SLAM is a funnel that very effectively drives audience engagement with the digital commerce ecosystem that Loblaws has invested so heavily in creating.‍

Focus Allocation — Paid Channels Drive Results: The vast majority (67%) of traffic for slam.realcanadiansuperstore.ca has been driven by advertising (Paid Search 55%, Display & Social 12%).‍

Messaging Strategy — Stand Behind an Emotional Message, But Be Aware of the Risks: Social media messaging that includes SLAM tends to perform better than average for Superstore in terms of views and engagements. In additional, a significant proportion of that audience engagement is positive, primarily on Instagram and Twitter. In contrast, Superstore has seen a large amount of negative engagement with SLAM posts on its Facebook page. Promoting an emotional message always carries risks, and the fact that SLAM is a gendered slogan has not resonated well with at least part of Superstore’s audience.

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In 2019, Superstore began focusing their messaging around ‘Shop Like a Mother’, often abbreviated as SLAM.

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Superstore’s digital channel including advertising (on all platforms), social, search, email, and key owned properties like realcanadiansuperstore.ca and the PC Express app.

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Superstore created a dedicated and heavily branded landing page for SLAM on a subdomain: slam.realcanadiansuperstore.ca. The on-page CTAs drive users to various parts of Loblaws’ digital ecosystem by promoting the key benefit of each digital offering, as well as highlighting entertaining content pieces that illustrate shoppers taking advantage of the programs.

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In essence, SLAM is a funnel that drives audience engagement with the digital ecosystem that Loblaws has invested so heavily in creating.

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slam.realcanadiansuperstore.ca averaged 26K monthly site visits from 2019 - 2020, of which 90% were on mobile. The vast majority (67%) of traffic has been driven by advertising  (Paid Search 55%, Display & Social 12%).

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Despite driving less than 1% of slam.realcanadiansuperstore.ca’s traffic, SLAM is a huge messaging focus for Superstore across its core social channels of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. SLAM messaging is continuously adapted for seasonality.

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SLAM messaging is clearly resonating with the audience on Superstore’s social, generating average or better views & engagements for social videos across all platforms. SLAM videos performed the best (versus the account average) on YouTube.

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SLAM Messaging is clearly designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience and then link those emotions to engagement with Loblaws’ digital ecosystem.

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Based on the quantitative performance of SLAM social posts and a sample of audience engagement, Superstore has clearly succeeded in creating an emotional response from their audience, primarily on Instagram and Twitter.

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In contrast, Superstore has seen a large amount of negative engagement with SLAM posts on its Facebook page. Promoting an emotional message always carries risks, and the fact that SLAM is a gendered slogan has not resonated well with at least part of Superstore’s audience.