Last Christmas, an excited customer bounced into Chipping Norton Co-op and told staff ‘I want everything on this page!’. They were holding a copy of the store’s promotional newspaper, pointing to the central food spread. It was just the reaction the Midcounties Co-op store was hoping for.

Easter is another opportunity for Midcounties Co-op’s flagship stores to inspire and delight. As they invite their customers to join them on a four-day flavour adventure over the bank holiday weekend, we show you how Dinosaur helped bring it to life.

Local exclusivity

Last year Midcounties Co-op launched their new generation of premium food stores. And very impressive they are too: light, airy and jam-packed with quality food. They’re located in affluent areas that stretch from Chipping Norton on the edge of the Cotswolds, up to Codsall in Staffordshire and across to Stourport in Shropshire. To give you an idea of their customers, David Cameron is a regular at ‘Chippy’ Co-op.

However, the thing that really makes Midcounties Co-ops special is not the calibre of their clientele but their championing of ‘local’ and the culinary creativity they serve up to the customers.

A feast for your eyes

Once you’re there, the stores deliver on instore experience. But the challenge is getting people through the doors. And what’s the best way of doing this?

By whetting our appetites.

Food photography plays a crucial role in showcasing the range for any food retailer but for Midcounties Co-ops, a nicely shot chicken dinner simply wouldn’t cut it. Quality and inspiration underpins their brand.  And their audience wants to be wooed. They want delightful culinary twists they haven’t thought of before. Something different, surprising, and preferably local.

Food the hero

With its four-day weekend, Easter is a great opportunity for us all to relax, enjoy and spend some quality time with our favourite people. From a lazy brunch to a full family roast, food always plays a central role.

To make Midcounties Co-op’s food an integral part of customers’ bank holiday celebrations, we used a tried-and-tested food and retail advertising approach that has delivered great success in previous campaigns – a newspaper-style door drop, supported by instore POS and adverts on local radio. These newspapers are full of richly detailed spreads where food is the hero. They have a relaxed, editorial tone that gently points out the quality of the food on offer with a big emphasis on ‘local’.

Embarking on a flavour adventure

With our Senior Art Director, Heather Seed, leading the creative, work began on concepts for a ‘four-day flavour adventure’ for all the family. This campaign would take the customer on a gastronomic journey through the bank holiday weekend with inspiration for every day – starting with fish dishes for good Friday right though to a drool-worthy Easter Sunday centerpiece with all the trimmings. A vivid spring colour palette of teal, duck-egg blue, pea green and a zing of lime would give both the door drop and the POS a fresh, spring feel.

After the photography moodboards were approved, the prep for the shoot began. They say that head chefs are obsessed with detail but Gordon Ramsey and co. have nothing on Heather when she’s scouring for props for her food shoots. Junk shops. Film prop warehouses. Friends’ houses. Nothing is safe. However, her meticulous attention to detail always pays dividends, as you can see from the breathtaking suite of 19 images produced across the three days.

Continuing the adventure

The final piece in the jigsaw was to make it easy for people to find ‘everything on this page’. To do this we created an ‘Four Day Easter Flavour Adventure’ logo – an egg, of course – as a wayfinder to the ingredients and recipes featured in the door drop. We wait to see if this food and retail advertising campaign can mirror the success of previous campaigns, but we’re quietly confident that customers in Chipping Norton, Stourport and Codsall will be enjoying very own Midcounties Co-op Easter egg hunt ready for the four-day weekend.

To see more of our work in the FMCG, food, retail, health and wellness sectors, click here for case studies on how we’ve helped The Co-op, Atkins, Midcounties Co-op, Wagamama and many more.

Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more, give us a call on 0161 831 0831 and ask for Nicola or get in touch at hello@dinosaur.co.uk.

Also published on Medium.