M&S Food marketer on future of its footballer-fronted nutrition drive

Poor nutrition is also having an impact on the development of children, with British five-year-olds up to 7cm shorter than children the same age across Europe, while height differences are also notable between affluent and deprived areas of the country.

Using these stats, M&S aims to level the playing field by using the power of football to give families more options and balance through its ‘Eat Well’ initiative, which launched in 2005.

“If a product can tick every box, then that means it is overall well-balanced in terms of nutrition, which means it gets the ‘Eat Well’ sunflower,” explains Sharry Cramond, the marketing director for M&S Food and Hospitality. “’Eat Well’ feels like a diamond the size of an apple for M&S because, listening to customers, we knew that it was a very simple way to navigate what you should be eating as you try to live a healthier life.”

Last year, the supermarket partnered with home nations’ football associations on a sponsorship deal across the women’s, men’s and para-football teams. “We want to use the power of football to demonstrate that if you eat well you can play better,” Cramond continues. “A lot of footballers told us years ago that they thought it was just about eating a big bowl of pasta before a match, but they now realize that the diet is just as important as training. We know the power of footballers; they are so iconic and can have such an influence on people.”

The marketer says its research shows that eight in 10 customers say their kids are more inclined to eat healthy foods if their favorite footballers do. Knowing this, during the Women’s World Cup, M&S launched a TV campaign starring Arsenal and Crystal Palace legend Ian Wright.

Aside from working with sports personalities like Wright and Jermaine Jenas, the brand has enlisted a nutritionist to give advice on social media platforms, while within the community it will promote services such as government Healthy Start vouchers and Scotland’s Best Start, as well as utilizing the M&S Eat Well truck at stadiums and events, plus expanding the food range itself.

“This is one of the most successful campaigns that we’ve ever tracked, outperforming on every single metric we measure,” adds Cramond, noting that results from Kantar score it highly on emotional appeal. “Customers have said it’s different, on-trend and there’s a clear call-to-action.”

It’s a long-term commitment for M&S and Cramond says it wants to educate people in a fun way that’s not just about ‘what footballers eat’ – all types of athletes can be held up as an example.

Of course, with a cost of living crisis, many families struggle to put food on the table full stop. M&S is partnering with local giving platform Neighbourly to help food banks provide fresh fruit and vegetables to lower-income families who struggle to afford healthy food.

“One of the important things we do is working with chef Tom Kerridge. What he does is work out ways to create really simple nutritious meals. We concentrate on what we can do, which is developing the Eat Well range and we’ve launched a ‘Remarksable’ value range, which has been a huge success. There are over 100 products.”

Cramond says it wants to be just as famous for the Eat Well campaign as it is other successes. “We have a small marketing team who look after all our key brands, whether that’s Percy Pigs or Colin the Caterpillar. Eat Well is just as important as the power brands that we have.”

This way of working is one that Cramond introduced when she moved to the company almost six years ago. “My background before working in retail was working in FMCG at Kraft Food. One of the first things that I did was set up a small FMCG-background team to look after our power brands.

“It’s a team of people who have an FMCG background and their main job is to manage these brands as you would if you were in FMCG.”

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