Brief
Tesco, the UK's largest food retailer, wanted to improve customer perceptions towards the freshness of their food and to engage customers around food and cooking related topics. At the same time the Web site needed to support Tesco's retail strategy by driving sales to Tesco's grocery and wine eCommerce Web sites.
Solution
Reactive worked with Tesco to develop a detailed understanding of their existing food content offerings online (a total of 12 separate Web sites) and establish a set of content requirements that would inform the design and structure of the new Web site. Based on this research an information architecture model was developed for the Web site that would meet Tesco's food communication needs online both now and in the future.
The Real Food Web site successfully provides an inviting and inspiring entry point into Tesco's broad food and drink offering, whilst also promoting Tesco's in-store ranges. A glossary of cooking tips and ingredients, including a wealth of video content, and a blog from Tesco's food experts make the Web site a one-stop-shop for aspiring cooks of all levels. At the heart of the site is a recipe database which now features over 2,000 recipes which users can search through, comment on, rate and share via social networks. The recipe database drives traffic to Tesco's eCommerce website by uniquely enabling users to add all recipe ingredients straight to their Tesco grocery shopping cart for immediate checkout.
In 2011, Reactive released two new additions to the Web site that offer an even more personalised approach to the weekly grocery shop. The Meal Planner helps you create a meal plan featuring recipes from the site based on a range of preferences including budget, diet and time. The second feature, the Recipe Binder, enables customers to save their favourite recipes to their accounts. The Recipe Binder dynamically suggests other recipes you may like based on your saved preferences. You can also mark recipes as ‘cooked’, enabling you to filter your selections. The Friend Feed in the Recipe Binder shows all of your Facebook friends’ recent activities, including saved and cooked recipes, and meal plans.
Results
The Real Food Web site has achieved the following results since launch in February 2010:
- Growth in traffic since launch to over 700,000 visits and 4 million page views each month (and still growing month-on-month)
- Over this same period the site has exceeded its other core KPIs by more than 50%
- Independent research conducted following the launch of the Web site has shown a significant improvement in user perceptions of Tesco's perceived passion and authority with regards to food
Tesco Real Food won Best Digital Solution (Consumer) at the 2011 APA Awards in the UK. The Web site fought off tough competition with the Web sites for Channel 4 Food, Manchester United, Virgin Media and Mazda all selected as finalists.
From the judges at the 2011 APA Awards:
“The entire site shows great functionality. Content such as the seasonal recipe and buying option really adds to the site’s practical purpose. With such fantastic results, it really shows the value of constantly updated, top quality content”.