Morrisons Supermarket Capabilities - Assignment Example

Another measure of success is sales intensity per square meter. Economies of scale and higher sales density deliver lower unit costs and higher net margins potentially leading to a 'spiral of supermarket growth' Morrisons is now one of just four supermarket chains that dominate the full-size superstore market in the United Kingdom. In descending order of size, the other three are Tesco, ASDA (owned by Wal-Mart), and Sainsbury's. Morrison's strategy is based on doing the basics efficiently, selling predominantly food at lower prices, and doing so only from large stores.

This is a different approach from the other three big chains. Morrison's products are marketed under two slogans "More reasons to shop at Mossisons" and "Quality and Value". The more reasons campaign was backed up with separate adverts explaining numbered "reasons". There is usually a large range of special offers in each store. Until recently the television advertising campaign for Morrisons had featured the voice of actor Sean Bean but recently this has changed to a middle class and southern English sounding woman's voice.

This has now once again changed. Morrisons announced that it will ditch its traditional branding and strapline in favor of a more modern brand image. CEO Marc Bolland announced: "Reflecting our nationwide presence and our many new customers, we will be making Morrisons the food specialist for everyone". The change will see the replacement of the current logo and the almost equally iconic "More reasons to shop at Morrisons" strapline, replaced with "fresh for you every day" or "fresh choice for you" and "Food specialist for everyone".

It will also involve the replacement of external signage, as well as changes to product packaging, point of sale, advertising, staff uniforms (replacing the old blue ties and bows to green ones) and distribution vehicles. The rationale behind the decision is the need for Morrisons to attract a wider national customer base, capitalizing on its expanded geographical spread following the acquisition of Safeway.On 4 June 2007, Morrisons launched their recycling "encyclopedia" for Morrison's packaging which is a new on-pack labeling scheme to help recycle more.

It aims to help increase awareness of what can be recycled and where. The scheme has been welcomed by the national recycling campaign, Recycle Now, and was launched during Recycle Now Week.Morrisons in-store advertising become markedly more aggressive towards competitors- throughout July 2007 sandwich boards comparing prices directly with those of named competitors have appeared which gave a favorable impression of Morrisons's price levels.All Morison's own- brand product packaging is being refreshed with the new logo.

The Best's packaging has now changed in color from black to dark green, while the Bettabuy brand has been replaced with Morrison's value, with yellow and green packaging.Morrisons launched a three-year 'Optimisation Plan' aimed at cutting costs to ensure future profit recovery. This includes 60m worth of cost savings in distribution and support functions, as well as adapting the smaller 'Choice' format stores below 25,000 sq ft, representing 40% of the store estate, to fit with local demographics and cultures.