Ritchies Supermarkets │ Celebrating 150 Years

CHALLENGE 

Ritchies has a unique approach to its business values and core purpose – benefitting its local community. Its focus on listening to and giving back to its communities has benefitted millions of Australians over its rich 150yr history and provided an opportunity for WE to position them away from the duopoly of the major supermarkets. 

Ultimately, we wanted to deliver a campaign that ensured those that knew about Ritchies continued to love it and those that didn’t, to consider why they’d want to shop anywhere else.

SOLUTION

Truth well told. When business is human there’s no greater currency to consumers today. We focused on a traditional press office approach to tell the stories of the Ritchies way.

With a series of phases creatively mapped out over the 12 months ahead, phase one was firmly focused on telling media exactly what Ritchies is about and how it has benefited the lives of Aussies across the nation.

• $50 million: announcing the 50 millionth dollar achieved by the Ritchies Community Benefits Program. This enabled us to highlight the founding principles of Thomas Ritchie and show Australia all the important benefactors of the funds raised by Ritchies and its shoppers
• Innovation and leadership: Ritchies has incredible innovation in the category, but often doesn’t get the platform to be heard against the industry leaders in Australia. We utilised charming, honest and thought-provoking CEO, Fred Harrison, to elevate the quality of the Ritchies product and service to drive consideration and trade authority

World class press office: underpinning all ‘story arcs’ we had an always on press office that focused on developing and responding to planned, proactive and reactive story creation for the brand as a whole and the 72 stores within it.

IMPACT

Securing Ritchies as an industry leader in the Australian supermarket arena (campaign still ongoing):  

• Over 125 pieces of coverage profiling the business 
• 142 Million?opportunities to see??
• Prominent profiles in News.com.au, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
• Built strong relationships with major retail and business writers, securing a steady drumbeat of new reactive commentary opportunities for Fred Harrison

CAPABILITIES

Press Office • Corporate Profiling • Newsjacking • Thought Leadership