Abstract
Since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, it has shaped how human beings carry out their activities. Among the key areas that the Internet has greatly impacted is marketing. Many businesses and companies have resorted to online platforms to popularize their products and services to reach potential customers globally. Thus, the phrase digital marketing refers to the use of mobile devices, websites, search engines, emails, social media platforms, and landing pages, among others, to market products and services to potential customers (Bala & Verma, 2018). There are eight digital marketing categories: pay-per-click, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, and market analytics.
Since 2018 Carrefour has laid out a profound strategy to move away from a traditional retailer with e-commerce capabilities. It envisioned that by 2026 it would be a digital retail company that places much premium on digital and data in its operations and value creation model. The strategy borrows from the company’s unique and decisive assets, emanating from the far-reaching transformation that has been going on since 2018 (Bala & Verma, 2018). The approach used in this strategy is dubbed “data-centric, digital-first,” and four key drivers will guide its implementation. These drivers include the acceleration of e-commerce, ramp-up of data and retail media activities, digitization and financial service, and digital transformation of traditional retail operations. This strategy intends to unleash the full omnichannel potential that is currently the D.N.A. of Carrefour, and it is unique in the industry.
Carrefour is yet to occupy its full space within the digital marketing space, and yet there is a huge potential for such a great multinational corporation in the digital space in the currently hugely digital-leaning marketing world. With the adopted digital retail strategy and the aim to be a world leader in digital retailing. Consequently, there is a dire need to carry out a digital marketing campaign to popularize the corporation among the young population, who have a great presence on digital platforms, especially social media.
The digital marketing campaign is geared towards giving carrefour a huge -presence on digital media platforms. Areas that this campaign targets include social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, among others. Social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter, have hugely impacted the marketing of products and services. Everyone across the globe can access social media. Thus, running marketing through social media has the potential to attract customers from across the globe, giving the business a unique opportunity of expanding globally with reduced set-up costs.
This campaign will also target increasing the competitiveness of Carrefour in the market. The main competitors of Carrefour include Tesco, Walmart, Kroger, Publix, and Ahold Delhaize. There is a need for Carrefour to venture into markets occupied by these retailers to increase its market reach and increase its profits. Thus, carrying out this campaign is an imperative step toward creating brand loyalty that will go into edging out competitors. Consequently, the campaign will seek to create a platform for interacting with Carrefour customers and potential customers to create a sacred bond. Social media will also eliminate intermediaries, giving customers direct access to their products and services without many hurdles. Consequently, communication will be precise and clear, increasing the customers’ faith in the brand.
Introduction
The Internet has greatly shaped the way of doing things, including marketing. Many businesses and companies have resorted to online platforms to popularize their products and services to reach potential customers globally. Thus, the phrase digital marketing refers to the use of mobile devices, websites, search engines, emails, social media platforms, and landing pages, among others, to market products and services to potential customers. There are eight digital marketing categories: pay-per-click, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, and market analytics. Since 2018 Carrefour has laid out a profound strategy to move away from a traditional retailer with e-commerce capabilities. It envisioned that by 2026 it would be a digital retail company that places much premium on digital and data in its operations and value creation model. The strategy borrows from the company’s unique and decisive assets, emanating from the far-reaching transformation that has been going on since 2018. The digital marketing campaign will run for a year. It will consider several factors, including media choice, key performance factors, and the budget for carrying out the campaign to guarantee maximum return on investment.
Situational Analysis
Carrefour has its business spread over 30 countries, offering employment opportunities to about 380,000 people. Thus, the Group must keep a keen eye on political scenarios in every country hosting their business. Thus, there is a possibility of changing policies of wholesale and retailing depending on the changing leadership. A perfect scenario was witnessed in India when Carrefour was forced to shut 5 stores and exit the market following the immense loss as a result of the change in policies of foreign direct investment (FDI). Carrefour avoids operating in countries that have military invasions or terrorist attacks. It prioritizes the stability of the political environment for the efficient and smooth running of the government. Besides, the Group is also concerned about various trade barriers that countries impose on each other due to political tensions.
Economic Factors
France is responsible for up to 50% of Carrefour sales. Thus, the growth and stability of the French economy are central to the success of the Group. Besides the French economy, the growth and strength of the host country’s economy are crucial in determining profits in a given fiscal year. A huge chunk of the Carrefour market is in south Asian developing economies. Consequently, the more these markets become uncertain, the more the business becomes volatile. The growth rates of G.D.P.s in a given country indicate the growth rate that Carrefour is likely to experience. The Group’s growth also depends on taxation and interest rates policies, among others.
Social Factors
Among the social factors central to the carrefour business are people’s lifestyle choices and customer attitudes while shopping. Thus, the Group must consider such factors in targeting its customers. Another crucial social factor is population demographics, since due to modern-day poor work-life balance, different age groups may have different preferences for their products, especially food. Carrefour must also put into consideration the economic class of its customers to avoid such mistakes as selling premium products to customers from the lower middle class.
Technological Factors
Technology is critical in elevating a company such as Carrefour above its competitors. Thus, staying up to date technologically and embracing evolution with developing emerging technological trends helps a company to remain profitable. Such emerging technologies that Carrefour has embraced include omnichannel strategies, which are crucial to improving the customer experience. Carrefour has also embraced the use of blockchain in its supply chain management. This technology will help to improve the Group’s working efficiency.
Environmental Factors
Carrefour must be ethical in supporting the depleting environment by avoiding selling harmful products to the environment. Thus, it should avoid disposal its waste in water bodies, polluting the air, or disposing of nonbiodegradable materials into the soil. It should also make organic products a major percentage since they are better for humans and the soils in which they are grown. Organic products are critical in maintaining good health and saving the loss of the fertile nature of the soil.
Legal factors
The labor laws vary across the countries within which Carrefour operates. Such laws as minimum labor wage, working conditions, pension schemes, and insurance, among others, also vary in strictness depending on the country. Thus, in its innovation in its strategy, Carrefour must protect such properly under the intellectual property laws to avoid competitors stealing them without obtaining proper permission. Carrefour must also embrace health and safety laws for both products and workers. The company must also follow taxation laws strictly and regularly in their various countries.
Competitor Analysis
The main carrefour competitors include Ahold Delhaize, Walmart, Tesco, Publix, and Kroger. Ahold Delhaize is a food retail company established in 2016 after the merger between Ahold and Delhaize, retail innovators for about 150 years. The company employs over 413,000 that work in over 7,400 specialty, small format, and local grocery stores.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
One of the main strengths of the Carrefour Group is that it is a global brand. Carrefour ranks as the 8th leading global retailer. It operates in more than 33 countries worldwide and has a network of over 12,200 chain stores. Besides, Carrefour also boasts of its high-quality services that have seen it win numerous awards. Since its inception, the Group has maintained top-notch services to its customers that have, in turn, endeared loyal customers to it. As a result, the brand has won several awards over the years. Some of the awards it has claimed include Retail of the Year, Chosen by Suppliers twice in 2020, and Open Innovation Award in 2017.
Carrefour also offers a diversified business portfolio. Its portfolio includes hypermarkets, cash & carry, grocery stores, discount stores, and convenience stores. Besides, the brand has a diverse product portfolio, offering a vast product range in different categories. Thus, the brand can target different customers to reach. As a result of this diversity of the brand’s business portfolio, Carrefour enjoys a huge brand value with a market capitalization of $12.47 billion in 2022.
Lastly, carrefour places a premium on the training and development of its employees. The Group invents a plethora of resources geared toward this course. As a result, the company boasts highly motivated and skilled employees. This is attributed to the Group’s acknowledgment and value of the professional workforce.
Weaknesses
There are weaknesses within the brand’s way of operation. Key among the weaknesses of Carrefour is the controversies surrounding it. Over the years, the brand has battled several controversies, including carbon monoxide in Indonesia, fake advertisement in France, and a brand boycott in China due to the company’s French background, among others. Such occurrences negatively impact the brand’s reputation.
Another weakness that surrounds the brand is its limited presence in developing countries. There is a limited presence of the brand in African and Asian countries. There is extraordinary growth potential in developing countries. This disinterest in developing countries has led to poor performance of some of the brand’s products in Asian countries.
Lastly, the exit from China has also had a negative bearing on Carrefour. There has been an increased shutdown of Carrefour stores in China and selling them to local retailers. Ultimately, the brand’s goal is to leave the world’s largest consumer market. This is not a smart decision.
Opportunities
Regarding opportunities, there are three main opportunities for Carrefour to hop onto. Firstly, there exists a huge promising space in e-commerce. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the world of doing business. It amplified the online service-oriented business. Among such businesses that received a boost was online retail shopping. Thus, Carrefour stands a great chance to expand its e-commerce activities and exploit the growth of the trends. Thus, it behooves the brand to use creative marketing techniques to advance its online business promotion.
Carrefour also stands a chance of exploiting emerging markets. The company has limited retail stores in both Africa and Asia. Consequently, it should capitalize on this opportunity coupled with increased e-commerce business to expand its operations in developing countries.
The last promising opportunity for carrefour lies in partnerships and alliances. There is a huge opportunity for strategic partnerships with other retail stores in various regions. These partnerships and alliances will help Carrefour grow its network, reduce operation costs, and increase its revenues.
Threats
Among the leading threats is competition from other retail stores such as Tesco, Publix, Kroger, and Walmart. The growth of these competitors leads to the reduction of the network of Carrefour.
Another threat for Carrefour is the tendency of customers to have preferences. The customers’ shopping trends shifted towards online shopping and home delivery services, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. This tendency has continued to a large extent even after easing COVID-19 pandemic regulations. This is detrimental to the success of Carrefour, which has a large network of physical stores. Thus, it risks losing much income.
The last threat Carrefour will likely face is the regulations of different governments of the jurisdictions within which it operates. Such regulations as currency exchange rates, labor laws, and other trade laws risk increasing expenses and negatively impacting the company’s profitability. Increasing the prices of products at its stores risks reducing the brand’s customer network.
Digital Marketing Strategy: Defining Carrefour Brand
Carrefour targets to triple its e-commerce Gross Merchandise Value (G.M.V.) by 2026 to hit 10 billion euros. Besides, the company also projects that digital platforms will contribute an additional 600 million euros to recurring operating income (R.O.I.) in 2026 compared to 2021. As a result, Carrefour seeks to increase by approximately 50 percent its investments in digital. 3 billion euros will be a dedicated plan between 2022 and 2026. Hence, carrefour is raising its yearly investment objective to reach approximately 1.7 billion euros. Carrefour also targets reaching carbon neutrality in its e-commerce activities by 2030 in line with its social and environmental responsibility policy. It will hinge its digital strategy on four priority drivers. The first driver is the acceleration of e-commerce. Carrefour has a plan of tripling its e-commerce GMV by 2026 relative to 2021. It seeks to achieve this through capitalizing on e-commerce assets owing to the reinforced powerful acceleration of e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second driver of Carrefour’s digital presence is data and retail media ramping up. Carrefour aims to become the European leader in data and retail media. This market is growing rapidly and is poised to reach 30 billion euros in 2024. Carrefour runs Carrefour Links, which provides the industrial partners of the Group to carry out marketing campaigns across all available group assets, including stores, applications, and websites. These partners can also measure their real end-to-end impact, ranging from visibility to sales transactions. Carrefour Link is arguably the best data and Retail Media offer across Europe due to its third-party data and being unique in quality and volume. It represents 8 billion transactions and over 80 million customers worldwide. This granular and qualified data is gathered in a unique data lake, fueled in time by in-store and digital transactions and information from financial services. Besides, Carrefour Links stands out for its partnerships with tech leaders in the world, including Rive Ramp, Google, and Criteo. This partnership allows Carrefour to extract optimum value from the available data. Thus, Carrefour anticipates very rapid growth of the said activity, and Carrefour Links expects to generate an extra 200 million euros of R.O.I. in 2026 relative to 2021.
The third driver is the digitization of financial services. Carrefour has built a strong insurances and financial services presence. This presence is primarily through its five banks, comprising France, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, and Belgium. It also creates this strong presence through commercial agreements that it enters with various players in the market. Carrefour plans to leverage its Brazilian bank. This bank is a center of expertise and innovation in digitizing financial services. Its priorities include developing new financing and insurance products and services in every country within which Carrefour operates for its B2C as well as B2B customers. Such customers include those that go for micro-credit, Buy Now and Pay Later, and affinity insurance services. Financial services activities digitization and customer data use will be essential in enabling financial services operations optimization and better risk cost management. Such financial services operations include upgraded scoring, qualified credit granting, and digital marketing campaigns.
The last driver that Carrefour uses to achieve its digital and data strategy by 2026 is the deep transformation of traditional retail through digital. Carrefour has been pursuing a strategy to migrate information technology systems to the cloud since 2018. So far, the company has managed to transfer 30% of its applications to the cloud. It has also set out the objective to be a fully cloud-based company by 2026. this move will allow the company to increase the agility of its systems. It will also be imperative in helping Carrefour to increase the time-to-time development of new applications and services. The value emanating from the operational data is reinforced by using artificial intelligence solutions.
Target Market
The main target group for this marketing campaign is buyers aged 40 years and below. This Group consists of people who spend a significant amount of their time online, either on social media or other online platforms. This Group of people is also highly skeptical and is not easily convinced of something (Quinn & Patterson, 2013). Thus, they require proof beyond doubt. The prevailing trends also influence most members of this age bracket. They also tend to do thorough research before spending money on a product. The members of this bracket are also excited about online shopping. It offers them the chance to get their desired products from far and wide in the comfort of their phones, tablets, or computers.
Consequently, carrefour must cater to customers under 40 years and below the bracket. This bracket is likely to compose the majority of the customers of the brand. The brand will establish unique features for verifying the authenticity of its products online. It will also ensure the compliance of high-quality products that a potential buyer can easily differentiate from products not belonging to Carrefour. The company will also allow flexible shipping terms for customers locally and internationally. This move will help preserve the local customers while attracting more international customers that unattractive shipping terms may otherwise turn away, such as high costs and the products taking too long before reaching the customers.
Campaign Objective and Plan
This digital marketing campaign for Carrefour seeks to achieve two main goals for the brand.
- The digital marketing campaign’s goal is to increase Carrefour’s presence in digital marketing by 50% by 2026. The company managers and digital marketing campaign strategists will achieve this goal by availing every digital resource necessary for digital marketing purposes. Achieving this goal will help Carrefour increase its digital sales and profit margins.
- The second goal of this digital marketing campaign is to penetrate 60% of the market within the developing economies in Asia and Africa by the year 2026. The company managers and digital campaign strategists will work with social media influencers from developing economies in Africa and Asia to create online promotional events for Carrefour. Achieving this goal will help the company to increase its customer base, which will, in turn, increase its profit margins.
Digital Marketing Plan
The digital marketing campaign will run for a year (12 months). It will consider several factors, including media choice, key performance factors, and the budget for carrying out the campaign to guarantee maximum return on investment.
Media Platform
This campaign will solely work with social media to advance its goals. The key social media platforms it will engage will include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Social media platforms are highly popular among people from all corners of the globe. According to Evans et al. (2021), about 4.7 billion people use social media platforms, with over 227 million new users joining the bandwagon within the last 12 months.
Social media usage is also projected to continue growing. The growth rate of social media since 2015 is an average of 12.5% yearly, with 2019 to 202 recording an average of 9.2%. Some regions recording high growth rates include emerging economies in Africa and Asia (Evans et al., 2021). In 2019-2020, Africa and Asia recorded the highest growth rate in social media usage, clocking 13.92% and 16.98%, respectively. South America, North America, Europe, and Australia recorded growth rates of 8.00%, 6.96%, 4.32%, and 4.9%, respectively, within the same period (Evans et al., 2021). Thus, social media growth is still on an upward trend and provides a better method of penetrating virgin economies, especially in Africa and Asia.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Assessing the marketing campaign’s success will be based on several key performance indicators. The number of online sales Carrefour records per a set period will play a key role in revealing the campaign’s success, especially in Asia and Africa. The increase in online sales will indicate the campaign’s penetration and the target market’s acceptability of the message (Fitzpatrick & Strovnik, 2021). The increase in online sales will also reveal the effectiveness of social media in advancing the digital marketing campaign.
The second performance indicator in this digital marketing campaign will be the number of traffic recorded on the carrefour e-commerce platforms. The two goals of this marketing campaign can be summed up as increasing the presence of carrefour in e-commerce. Thus, it implies that it seeks to leverage the widespread of the Internet and the growing popularity of online shopping to increase its online customer base across the globe (Fitzpatrick & Strovnik, 2021). Consequently, the traffic witnessed on the carrefour e-commerce platforms will provide a chance to assess the extent of success of the marketing campaign. Among the key ways, traffic to Carrefour e-commerce platforms will be recorded clicks on online ads, direct visits to the Carrefour e-commerce websites, and referrals by previous customers who had already experienced the e-commerce offered by this brand.
Campaign Budget
The e-commerce revenue of Carrefour in 2022 is valued at $6.3 billion globally. Thus, to properly and effectively cater to the digital marketing campaign, the company will spend 5% of its e-commerce revenue, translating to $315 million annually. The campaign will run for 3 years. Key players in the digital marketing campaign will include people, technology, and ads. People will take up 30% of the total budget. Technology will take the largest share of the budget, 40%, and the ads will take the remaining 30% of the budget annually.
Gantt Chat
Conclusion
Carrefour targets to triple its e-commerce Gross Merchandise Value (G.M.V.) by 2026 to hit 10 billion euros. Besides, the company also projects that digital platforms will contribute an additional 600 million euros to recurring operating income (R.O.I.) in 2026 compared to 2021. To achieve this dream, Carrefour has set four driving factors, consisting of acceleration of e-commerce, data and retail media ramping up, the digitization of financial services, and deep transformation of traditional retail through digital. Consequently, the digital marketing campaign seeks to achieve two main goals for the brand. They include to increase Carrefour’s presence in digital marketing by 50% by 2026 and to penetrate 60% of the market within the developing economies in Asia and Africa by the year 2026. The campaign key performance indicators will include the number of online sales Carrefour records per a set period, especially in Asia and Africa, and the number of traffic recorded on the carrefour e-commerce platforms. The budget for the campaign will be based on the brand’s revenues. The e-commerce revenue of Carrefour in 2022 is valued at $6.3 billion globally. Thus, to properly and effectively cater to the digital marketing campaign, the company will spend 5% of its e-commerce revenue, translating to $315 million annually.
Reflexive Commentary
This course generally provides an in-depth learning of digital marketing. Digital marketing refers to the use of mobile devices, websites, search engines, emails, social media platforms, and landing pages, among others, to market products and services to potential customers. It can be broken down into various categories: pay-per-click, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, and market analytics.
Under this course, there are several topics, emerging trends, and implications that a student can learn. Some of the topics under digital marketing include measuring success in digital marketing, the effect that offline events have on online connective actions, research in digital marketing, omnichannel retailing and customer satisfaction, and niche marketing, et cetera. All these topics play a pivotal role in advancing the understanding, execution, and success of digital marketing. For instance, further research into digital marketing helps to broaden the field by highlighting areas with huge potential in the near future. It also helps to discover trends in digital marketing, hence providing timely information regarding the direction that the field of digital marketing is likely to take to remain competitive.
In this digital era, it demands more than just seed capital and business acumen deliver on the customers’ demands. It calls for companies to modernize their processes and mindset. Thus, digital marketing is one of the areas in the digital business era experiencing continuous improvements and updates. Currently, various emerging trends help to broaden the field and help it become more acceptable. Emerging digital marketing trends include influencer marketing, omnichannel marketing, artificial intelligence, video marketing, long-form content, social media shopping, and progressive web pages, among others. These emerging trends have a huge potential to create a competitive advantage when businesses use them efficiently. They help to modernize a business and play a critical role in bringing about a novel way of operating in the current business milieu.
The digital marketing plan adopted comprises social media as a marketing platform, two performance indicators, and a budget plan of 5% of the annual revenue of Carrefour. Social media is a perfect selection for a medium. About 4.48 billion people use social media daily. Thus, this presents a huge market to tap into with digital marketing. As presented in the marketing plan, the performance indicators will be critical in helping the firm assess its performance compared to its targets. Hence, it will be possible to assess areas that require improvement and those that the company may need to undertake a total overhaul. The budget presented is sufficient to ensure the smooth operation of all factors considered. Human capital will be essential in social media marketing. It will therefore demand a significant chunk of the budget.
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