JKR

M&S are letting us know they are competitive. Makes sense. But doing it in such a functional and unalluring manner throws all the equities they have built up as the UK’s premier “food porn” merchant in the bin. And when it’s done at the same time that they are stocking other brands for the first time, perhaps M&S equities are getting fuzzy? It’s another example of how focussing on price, price and price while failing to capitalise on more emotive brand values leads to forgettable communication. While the supermarkets engage in an arms race which forces them to discount, the brand name products are again let off the “switch and save” hook.

When the upturn arrives the supermarkets will have failed to convince us they are much more than competitively priced grocers. Interesting that out of all of this, Waitrose Essentials approach is being imitated and challenged because it played back to preconceptions around their brand (in a visually appealing way) and so was a notable success.