About the IGA Brand:
Independent Grocery Alliance (IGA) is an Australian chain of apprximately 1,400 supermarkets. The IGA brand is owned by Metcash, but individual IGA stores are owned independently.
IGA’s unique value proposition is to never take a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the way they do business and compete with larger retailers such as Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. IGA recognises that every store is unique and that each city, suburb or town has different and unique requirements. These values resonated immediately with the team at HIVO, who take pride in the customisation and tailoring of our platform to fit our customers unique requirements.
‘Your local IGA store’ model appeals to Australian’s as a culturally diverse nation of more than 23 million people, with many different tastes, likes and dislikes. As a result, through it’s network of independently owned stores IGA tailors it’s rage of groceries and brands to provide local customers more of what they want.
True to the ‘local first’ model, IGA proudly support Aussie producers by stocking ranges of locally made products. Managers at local IGA stores often actively participate in and support the communities surrounding their store. Initiatives include promotional and sponsorship programs that assist local schools, surf clubs or hospitals via the donation of food, equipment, money, fundraisers and employee time.
Digital Asset Management is Analogous to the Grocery Shopping Experience:
When you think about a digital asset management platform it has very similar attributes to a grocery store. Digital assets (the groceries) are supplied to the platform (the grocery store) in a predictable manner. All assets are then sorted, categorised and positioned in a logical and systemised way by platform administrators (grocery store managers).
When users (grocery store customers) then go to search for the digital assets they require, everything is where it should be and the time taken to do the grocery shopping is quick and efficient. Any unusual requests, customisations or assistance required by users or administrators is provided by the team who built and support the DAM platform (experts in building grocery stores).
HIVO has revolutionised our brand governance and distribution across a complex and layered group of businesses. It seemed like an overwhelming task at first but the team at HIVO took the pressure off with a seamless onboarding and implementation which rapidly increased our speed to market.
Poojan Shah
Head of Marketing at Foodies Market
How HIVO works with IGA:
The fierce competition between supermarkets continues to put downwards pressure on prices. With higher margins on private-label products, supermarkets are pushing home brands to maintain profitability. The HIVO platform is currently used by a group of 13 stores who operate under a new sub-brand of IGA, ‘Foodies Market’.
Foodies Market is the label for a number of different valued added fresh groceries, prepared meals and products that are prepared and sold throughout each store. The team at Foodies Market faced the challenge of uniting and synchronizing several different teams, store managers, suppliers and corporate departments of the business under the new Foodies Market brand.
To assist with this repositioning and brand building journey a common platform was needed that provided a central source of truth for the Foodies Market brand assets, product labels, videos, photos, menus and signage assets.
The four main use cases (also modules of the HIVO platform) that are being used by Foodies Market are as follows:
1. Digital Asset Management. A bi-product of Foodies Market growth via acquisition strategy is that each newly acquired store has its own unique branding, signage, displays, specials and promotional material. A centralisation of assets now provides a single source of truth with all new digital assets being automatically tagged across product imagery (apple, banana, meal etc), which has saved a significant amount of time and provided immediate value.
2. Resource Management Software. Foodies market are managing their internal marketing resources, as well as creative agency OKMG through the HIVO platform. Tasks like workflow approval for creative assets,asset versioning via user commenting, resource visibility, utilisation, management and budget tracking are all done via HIVO. Read more about our Resource Management features here.
3. Brand Guidelines and Governance. The group decided to amalgamate the branding for 13 stores and create one name Foodies Market IGA. What was effectively 13 different brands were now being rolled into one. Each touch point required reworking including website assets, on-premise signage, supplier information and customer acquisition / marketing material. HIVO now provides a centralised and official brand portal for group wide managers to access, as well as multiple style guides for each Foodies Market store (eg. Foodies Market Claremont, Foodies Market Wembley...). Read more about our Brand Guidelines and style guide features here.
4. Template Design. Upon completion of the brand consolidation project, managers across the group began creating assets on the fly using HIVO’s template design features. Now, ensuring assets are on brand, using only verified logos, imagery, graphic device and typeface is a breeze and brand governance problems are a thing of the past. Users can create content for social media on brand and at scale in just a few clicks with no room for variation outside templated restrictions. Read more about our Template Design features here.
The Future of the Digital Grocery Store:
Major supermarkets are looking to utilise technology to operate more effectively in order to streamline costs, attract new customers and fight for market share. Data from Bankwest shows that the Australian grocery market is undergoing a digital revolution. Online shopping is at all time highs for adoption and growth is constant.
Industry leaders like the team at Foodies Market are now adopting fit for purpose technology like the HIVO platform and are leading the charge in meeting customer demand with scalable and responsive software solutions.
Almost every touchpoint in the grocery store shopping experience is being digitised from e-commerce, to signage and menus, to delivery, to labelling, to ordering and customer service. All of these touchpoints require digital assets and HIVO is excited to be at the forefront of this trend as businesses struggle to keep up with the ever increasing amount of new content and variety of output requirements and optimisations across channels.
The value in digitisation is coming from all angles, with some areas or channels being more expected than others. Some examples of digitisation initiatives include:
• Investment in store systems, mobile apps and online platforms to extend customer reach;
• Personalised consumer marketing to attract new customers;
• Automated distribution centres to reduce employees required;
• Using data to tap into customer preferences and assisting with future business planning;
• Introduction of digital kiosks enabling customer loyalty initiatives and re-marketing campaigns;
• Coolers and freezers that include digital displays, instead of clear glass doors;
• The digitisation of menus and displays including digital end cap and shelf-edge screens along their aisles, introducing a new level of dynamism and pop right alongside the products people are buying. This can can help influence sales momentum and minimise product wastage;
• Programmatic ad campaigns on grocery store signage that automatically display ads for cold refreshing products whenever the weather is hot and sunny, but display ads for warm products or comfort food when it’s cold and rainy; and
• Delivery of website and social media content about specialty foods can help connect grocery stores with niche shoppers to get them through the door.
All of these digitisation initiatives require the use and management of digital assets. HIVO is committed to continuously expanding our product offering, integrations and services to support digitisation from a variety of vendors and across any channel. Our team is at the forefront of the digital asset management market in Australia and work hard to develop new ways to solve our clients digital challenges.
Get in touch with our team today to request a demonstration and see HIVO in action.