How supermarket openings are becoming ‘brand moments’

On 24 June, the fizzy treat was being handed out to shoppers who attended the reopening of Waitrose Bloomsbury after a renovation that lasted a full month. What’s more, the cocktails were accompanied by a live guitarist performing acoustic pop covers in the fruit & veg aisle, plus custom chocolate bars and free canvas tote bags.

“I only had a chance to swing by after work around five in the evening, and by then only an Ice cream sampling station remained,” said Bloomsbury local Tobias Cantelo. “But there was still very much a buzz in the air, everyone was in a good mood. It confirmed we’re back in the swing of things after a painfully long month of closure.”

There was a time when supermarket openings were far from being considered newsworthy. However, as competition to win customer loyalty has intensified, retailers have begun adopting increasingly creative marketing strategies. Across the sector, grocers are borrowing wholesale from the playbooks of fashion drops and hospitality launches: mascots, trolley dashes, branded merch and block-long queues. Even a store refit is no longer just a store refit. It has become a PR event that lives on in shoppers’ memories and across social media.

But is this a genuine strategic pivot in how grocers think about physical retail? Does all the theatre translate into sales or just into likes? Can independents and discounters play this game too? And in future does every opening and reopening now require such pageantry?

To understand why some retailers are increasingly keen on spectacle, it helps to remember how recently the opposite was true. Retail theatre in its purest form – scratch bakeries, cheese barges, fishmongers – had spent recent years in retreat, squeezed out by automated checkouts and digital ordering screens. The risk was obvious: bricks & mortar outlets beginning to feel more utilitarian than inviting.

The resulting decline in customer satisfaction has prompted some retailers to reverse course. Morrisons, for example, closed 70 of its meat and fish counters last year as part of a cost-cutting drive, but begun reinstating them last month after feedback from customers.

The tactics now doing the rounds are extensive. At the opening of the nation’s largest M&S Foodhall last month, shoppers in Godalming queued to spin a Percy Pig-themed wheel of fortune for in-store prizes. There are also exclusive merch drops, ranging from canvas tote bags emblazoned with the name of the town hosting a new Waitrose to embroidered baseball caps declaring “I’d rather be in the Clapham M&S Foodhall”.

There are competitions and giveaways, from Iceland’s air fryer raffles and 90-second trolley dashes to Lidl’s build-it-yourself Gingerbread Store kit, 10 of which had £100 Lidl vouchers hidden inside. Meanwhile, mascots like Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot are now turning up for photo ops as reliably as any ribbon-cutter.

Ribbon cuttings themselves – long a prerequisite of supermarket openings – have been dressed up rather than dropped, with celebrities and schoolchildren now featuring heavily. Richard Thornton, group customer interaction director at Aldi, says the retailer tries to go “beyond a standard ribbon cutting, often inviting Team GB or Paralympics GB athletes to open new stores”.

The Co-op in Rendlesham took a local angle by asking year three and four pupils to colour bunting for the store opening this June. Kate McCrae, retail director at Co-op, says that “building relationships with local schools – where Fairtrade and sustainability are often part of classroom activity – [is] part of the process when we launch a new store”. As such, openings are also becoming opportunities to showcase ongoing charitable initiatives that may be overlooked by shoppers.

Meanwhile, Asda capitalised upon local appeal and star power by bringing Leeds native and Spice Girl Mel B to the opening of its first George concept store in the city last May. “Whether it’s one of our new standalone George stores or a refreshed superstore, we make these moments feel special through family-friendly activities that create a real buzz. We’ve had everything from giveaways tailored to each location to stilt walkers – and, of course, plenty of balloon arches,” says Asda spokesperson Elliott Lancaster.

While star power and decor are effective at generating short-term attention, retailers have also taken note of initiatives to reward customer loyalty.

“A Waitrose opening or relaunch is fundamentally about building long-term relationships rather than executing a transactional marketing event,” says Emily Dow, senior local marketing manager of Waitrose. “Our approach provides a dedicated moment to thank our customers for their patience during a period of transformation and thank our partners for their continued hard work.”

The through-line is unmistakable: these aren’t really store openings so much as brand activations. Grocery stores are turning what was once a routine operational milestone into a cultural moment, one that can be designed to generate social media content, optimise local attention and, ultimately, establish emotional resonance. In an era when convenience and price alone offer little meaningful differentiation, an effective opening day sequence can make all the difference. Or can it?

The obvious challenge is whether any of this is “theatre” in the sense that actually matters, or just spectacle for spectacle’s sake. Veteran retail format commentator John Ryan draws a sharp line between the two. Theatre built into daily store design, he argues, is worth far more than a one-day stunt.

Reflecting on his experience attending the June M&S Foodhall opening in Godalming, he recalls that many shoppers queuing for the Percy Pig wheel-of-fortune giveaway grew frustrated by the long wait, illustrating how logistical shortsightedness can undermine customer satisfaction at even the most high-energy of launches.