Pilgrim’s Europe is one of the largest food producers worldwide, it operates over 40 facilities across France, The Netherlands, the UK and Ireland and has a team of over 17,000 people.

It’s brands can be found kitchen’s worldwide and includes staples such as Richmond and Fridge Raiders.

Pilgrim’s Europe aim is to “create better food for everyone”, producing branded and own label chicken, pork and lamb. It also produces snack ranges and chilled and frozen ready meals.

But a business like Pilgrim’s doesn’t get to the top without a strong marketing strategy.

I sat down with marketing and innovation director Chris Doe to find out more about how Pilgrim’s Europe’s retail marketing strategy propels the brand forward.

Doe explains that part of its marketing strategy is to increase growth. Richmond is consumed by about a third of the UK population and Fridge Raiders by about 15%, so there is still a large percentage of the UK for the group to target.

He says: “We’d use our big above-the-line campaigns to drive mass awareness at scale and to bring to life the kind of emotional proposition of the brand.

“We would then use the retail media to start bringing to life more of those harder-hitting messages that encourage people to convert, so that the messaging would be tailored to break down some of the category barriers that we know exist, or some of the barriers around the product to encourage people to give it a go.”

According to Doe, the business ran a campaign for its Richmond brand, which gave people the chance to win a holiday and some cash prizes, to give people a “little boost” with the cost-of-living crisis.

He says: “I’m a big believer in keeping things quite simple, and when you’re at a point of purchase, you’ve got a couple of seconds max to make a decision between this brand or this brand, so I’m a very big believer in using your distinctive brand assets as much as you possibly can.

“So getting clear on what they are, what are the things that people associate your brand with, and then making sure that your retail media creative brings those things to life. So in the example of Richmond, it’d be the rolling hills, it’d be the cream, it’d be the logo.”

With Fridge Raiders, people associate it with the rays of light on the pack and the bold colours of the packaging, so the firm has been making sure that there is a “level of consistency”  involved with its brand assets.

He adds that it’s important to ensure that the above-the-line message is tailored to an in-store environment, “so that you’re making it land in a very relevant way to that in-moment purchase decision”.

He says:  “I think the best campaigns that we’ve done is where it absolutely nods to the above the line creative, and it feels totally integrated with what the brand is trying to do, but you bring it to life in a way that resonates with the shopper,  beyond just seeing the campaign itself.

“I would say that the above-the-line campaigns drive and penetration. So we want to make sure that we’re going out to as many people as we can; it’s a very broad media buying approach that we would take with our above-the-line to support that penetration strategy.”

“We would use retailer data to get a bit more targeted in-store. So we want to make sure that we are really talking to a group of consumers in a way that is going to resonate with them. And we’d use the data to get very clear on that.”

Data would also be used to choose which media channels are going to help Pilgrim’s Europe achieve their objectives.

He says: “So if it’s about driving awareness of a piece of MPD [marketing and product development] , you’re probably going to be using the retailer’s data to choose different media touch points versus trying to get someone to pick up another pack another time. So I would say that it influences a lot of our media choices and who we’re targeting.”

Doe believes that marketing should support the “overall commercial agenda”. It should drive growth for the brand and for the business as a whole.

It should also aid in changing consumer’s perceptions about a brand. He suggests that by using brand equity data, Pilgrim’s Europe can see whether they have been successful in changing people’s perceptions by persuading them to buy something for the first time.

The firm also uses econometrics to measure its success, which enables it to get an idea of ROI on some of the initiatives it has run.

He says: “Commercial return is absolutely critical.”

“I would say that they [the brand’s] need to absolutely talk to each other. And we make sure that they are as integrated as they can possibly be. ”

He adds: “If you get clear on what they are for the brand, and what the absolute strategic comparatives are for the brand every single touchpoint should help address those. So whether that’s your TV, your social, your out-of-home campaign, or your retailer media, they all need to contribute to the same outcome, ultimately. So we try to make sure they’re really integrated.”

According to Doe, the best campaigns are the ones that bridge brand building with commercial delivery in store.

He says: “It’s the thing that converts, it’s the thing that drives consideration when you’ve got a split second choice to make. It takes that big brand building mass awareness stuff into something that converts at the point of purchase and delivers commercially.”

To make distinctive brand assets its important to make sure its got “consistent” look and feel. The broader marketing campaign that surrounds them should “feel like part of the same world”. But it should also be tailored to the shopper in that moment.

Doe comments: “I would say that there’s also a bit around measurement and understanding which touch points perform which role for you in the mix, which ones are going to give you the better return, which ones are going to help you deliver the objectives that you’ve got in place for the  brand, but also for the campaign. And then I think creative also really matters as well.

“There’s definitely something around which media channels you use within retail media, but it’s about making sure that your creative is really impactful. That it stands out, it catches the eye. It’s familiar, it’s recognisable.”

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