How Dutch supermarket chain, Hoogvliet, reclaimed control of their marketing content and creative processes

Benefits

• 40-50% time saving on brochure production.
• Easier collaboration between central marketing and multiple creative agencies.
• Increased creative control over marketing collateral.

About the customer

Hoogvliet is a Dutch supermarket chain, founded in 1968 in the village of the same name, now part of Rotterdam. One of the top ten supermarket chains in Holland, it boasts 71 stores and employs 6,000 staff.

Zuid-Holland is home to over 60 of these stores, attracting 1.1 million regular customers and making it the third biggest food retailer in the province.

In addition to its portfolio of physical stores, the chain also has an e-commerce site and mobile app for added convenience.

Challenge

Hoogvliet attracts customers through strong customer service, everyday value, and special offers. These offers are promoted across several channels including social media, email, online, in-app, and in-store.

Stores vary in size and smaller locations can’t take part in every special offer. So individual stores use weekly catalogs and point-of-sale materials to signpost shoppers to the offers they are participating in.

This presents a logistical challenge for the central marketing team, which needs to balance national campaigns and business-as-usual activity, with highly localized, time-sensitive promotions.

At any one time, Hoogvliet has four or five weekly catalogs in production, as well as POS materials that must match the catalog content in terms of product imagery and information.

This process involves input from numerous stakeholders, including in-house marketers, two external agencies (one for catalog design, one for POS), and individual store managers.

To improve productivity and reduce time-to-market and cost, the supermarket decided to explore digital transformation of their marketing activities.

Evaluation

Lacking in-house expertise in content orchestration, Hoogvliet approached workflow and software consultants, Graphit, for help.

Consultant Joris De Jong wasted no time auditing their current processes and identifying opportunities for streamlining workflows.

He immediately spotted that Hoogvliet was hampered by manual processes for catalog production, including:

• Manual data input.
• Fully outsourced layout and design.
• Poor asset management.
• Asynchronous approval processes via email and PDF.

Hoogvliet wanted a streamlined system that they owned and could control, so they could continue to work with multiple creative suppliers, rather than being tied into a proprietary system belonging to an individual agency.

As a WoodWing solutions delivery partner, Graphit knew WoodWing Assets and WoodWing Studio would deliver the process improvements, cost savings, and collaborative environment Hoogvliet needed.

Implementation

After implementing WoodWing solutions, integrated with EasyCatalog and Adobe InDesign, the supermarket chain has reclaimed control of its creative process and reduced time-to-market.

They’re now able to create a master data source that contains product and promotion information, push a button and automatically populate an InDesign catalog template.

The process pulls in product images from WoodWing Assets as their single-source-of-truth for product imagery and creates proof that all collaborators can view and feedback on within WoodWing Studio.

If product details change, Hoogvliet can amend the master data source and the catalog artwork is automatically updated with the changes.

Once agreed, the artwork is shared with their design agency, who finalizes the design.

Graphit estimates that this has cut catalog production times by 40-50%, whilst bringing the initial production stages in-house has reduced outsourcing and agency costs.

Furthermore, the same data source feeds POS production with a separate agency - who also have access to WoodWing Assets - ensuring greater consistency between collateral produced remotely.

Working within the scope of the supermarket’s existing systems, Graphit has delivered a future-proof system that can scale and grow when Hoogvliet is ready to take the next steps in their digital transformation.

Results & benefits

• Increased creative control over marketing collateral.
• 40-50% time saving on brochure production.
• Easier collaboration between central marketing and multiple creative agencies.
• No sacrifice of autonomy thanks to in-house ownership of processes, systems, and software.

Partner