The Co-op has praised the success of its advertising in helping it recruit over one million new member-owners across 2023, more than in 2021 and 2022 combined.
The new sign ups bring its membership total to 5 million.
Largely spearheaded by its the retailer’s omnichannel ‘Proper Donut’ campaign developed by creative agency Lucky Generals, 2023’s membership growth was the largest the firm has seen in any given year since 2017.
Driving strong levels of cut-through with non-members, a Co-op survey revealed that close to three-quarters (74%) of its target audience found it ‘attention-grabbing’, with 76% made them believe there were great deals and prices to be had with the brand.
As a further indication of the ad’s success, almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents said that the campaign made them feel they were ‘missing out’, with 58% adding that it encouraged them to become a better member.
Crucially, the Co-op’s media advertising was credited with driving over half (55%) of all new member acquisition across 2023 to date. The retailer is now ‘well-placed’ to have up to eight million member-owners by 2030.
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As a result of the strong focus on member prices across its advertising, the Co-op has increased its marketing return on investment by 52% year-on-year.
The brand saw further success with its community-focused Christmas campaign, ‘Giving the gift of community spirit’, which allowed members to make a difference to their Local Community Fund by giving some or all of their membership reward wallet balance. In total, it raised £575,000.
Through a combined £90 million investment in its ‘Member Save More/Proper Donut’ campaign, the retailer was able to reduce its prices on 770 lines, with member-owners benefitting from an additional discount on 178 of those.
“Our success in attracting new members has seen us surpass our expectations with new sign ups last year higher than the previous two years combined,” Co-op CEO, Shirine Khoury-Haq said.
“This momentum has continued into 2024 as we now stand at 5.2 million active member owners, and we expect to continue this journey and substantially increase the number of member-owners to 8 million by 2030.”
The Co-op’s group revenue dropped £200million to £11.3 billion in its last financial year as pre-tax profit plunged £200million to £28 million group profit before tax (down £240 million). However, the significant drop is linked to the sale of its petrol forecourt business to Asda in 2022.
