Mercator’s marketing team led by Viktorija Radojević is starting this spring with a renewed marketing campaign. At the time of the Slovenian Advertising Festival, Mercator is Slovenia unveiled a new communication campaign. It’s not about spring clean-up, but about fundamental change in strategy and refreshed communication. The first pieces of the puzzle have appeared already on Thursday in the streets (triple billboards and posters) and Mercator stores, while on Friday they premiered the new TV ad in which the images are merged into a whole in fifty-five seconds long video directed by Saša Podgoršek. Unforgettable rhythm of Alice Merton’s No roots is merged with the extremely dynamic series of images of food and enthusiastic Mercator’s bakers, cashiers, butchers, pizza makers and sellers. The whole campaign was conceived by strategic and creative team of the Ljubljana agency Arnoldvuga.
How did it come to a radically different and comprehensive campaign? Marketing department of Mercator decided earlier this year to start a pitch for a new advertising agency, and in the month of March Pristop, Grey, Idea from Zagreb and Arnoldvuga competed for Mercator’s ad budget in Slovenia. By unanimous vote, the victory was claimed by Arnoldvuga. “The brief was crystal clear,” said Viktorija Radojević and added: “Mercator wants to attract younger population. We offer freshness and quality. We put emphasis on local, best products for a good price.”
The pitch of Arnoldvuga won them over with a serious research and strategic work, visual systematization and convincing animation which announced the music and the energy.
In record time, only fourteen days after being selected, the agency carried out the filming (with the production company Nora) and photo shooting, so all key visuals were done before 1 April.
Animation impressed even the director Saša Podgoršek who immediately accepted the challenge and returned to his homeland Slovenia from Berlin. Film audience knows and appreciates Podgoršek for his feature films Dark Angels of Destiny (Temni angeli usode) and Sweet Dreams (Sladke sanje) and the exceptional collaboration with modern dance choreographer Iztok Kovač (Vertigo Bird, the House of Freedom) and music collaboration on a series of music videos (Sidharta, Laibach), while his colleagues know him for the series of award-winning TV ads. Despite technically modest set, with a camera in his hands and almost no lighting, Podgoršek got close and personal to Mercator employees. Viewers will see cashier Rebeka Plestenjak and probably see the future star of the saga of Piki, and will see Alen as a man born to dance.
Art Director of Arnoldvuga, Jure Kožuh, is especially proud of the performance of the story according to the principle of sequential triple ads (on successive pages of newspapers), three adjacent billboards or consecutive citylights and the entire triptych of tam-tam pillars. “We approached the moment when the two-dimensional media inform through a particular sequence of messages, which brings a new dynamism in communication” Kožuh said.
Many creative solutions are already on the way to the stores, where they will use point of sale design to convey the story into interaction between buyer and seller – because it was created there. Its interactivity makes it an ideal material for digital and social networks where people – especially young – have already begun to intensively “like” and share music, while colleagues and customers readily recognize their best neighbor.
