ASDA STORES LTD
Asda Stores Ltd is a chain of supermarkets in Great Britain which sells clothing apparels, toys, food and other all-purpose merchandise. They are also in the market for financial services. Aside from this, Asda Stores has Asda Moda, a mobile telephone network. Its main headquarter is located in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
In 1999, Asda was turned into an auxiliary of Wal-Mart, an American seller which is the largest in the world. Asda is next in line to Tesco in the United Kingdom as the largest retailer. Special offers abound in Asda supermarket chains which primarily accounts for its popularity among shoppers. The latest survey conducted in December 2010 showed that almost seventeen percent of supermarket shoppers go to Asda for their grocery needs.
In 1949, Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited was founded. It was later renamed as Asda Stores Limited in 1965 after the Asquith and Associated Dairies merger. In a buyout, the dairy group was sold out and became the Associated Fresh Foods. From that time onwards, Asda has no longer any association from where its company name was taken from.
With its expansion in 1989 wherein it purchased large stores of Gateway Superstores, a rival store, it exceeded the financial capabilities of the business and came into difficulties when it expanded to various products. Stockholders were compelled to raise more money to help the floundering business. Under the leadership of its CEO, Archie Norman, the company was able to bounce back on its feet. Archie Norman adapted the retail philosophy, system processes and marketing strategies of Wal-mart.
In 1997, they were able to get the Spice Girls to endorse their store. Forty various products named after the group became available in 1997. This includes items as official Spice merchandises, party supplies, and even Spice Girls meals for kids in restaurants inside the supermarket chain.
Allan Leighton, the protégé of Archie Norman, succeeded him as the CEO. At that time, Asda already has 230 stores. A plan was also being set up to prepare a merger with Kingfisher plc. However, the Asda chain was purchased instead by Wal-mart to the amount of 6.7 billion pounds on July 26, 1999.
Even after the buyout, Asda still retained its headquarters at Leeds, West Yorkshire. Asda bought 12 Safeway stores from Morrisons signaling its expansion to Northern Ireland territory.
As part of Wal-mart’s restructuring, Asda was sold to Corinth Services Limited, a subsidiary of Wal-mart in 2009. Andy Clarke was appointed in May 2010 as Asda’s CEO. In this month also, Asda announced its intention to buy Netto’s operations in the United Kingdom. This signifies Asda branching out into smaller but more contained markets as Netto’s store range is only one fifth of a regular Asda chain. But in September of the same year, forty-seven of the Netto stores out of 194 were sold by Asda owing to a regulation of the Office of Fair Trading. Asda has begun the renaming of all previously Netto stores early this year.
They also made known to the public in February 2011 their acquisition of a number of Focus DIY stores. These stores will also be modified into supermarkets.
The marketing campaign and strategies of Asda are unforgettable and employs celebrities as Julie Walters, Leonard Rossiter, the Spice Girls, Michael Owen, Hatti Jacques, and Sharon Osbourne. They also sponsored successful programs and activities. Among those they sponsored were the football teams Sheffield Wednesday and AccringtonStanley; a Prenton Park stand; and kids’ Kwik crickets. Their advertisements usually depict Asda as the most reasonably priced supermarket in the United Kingdom.
Their slogan, “That’s Asda price” was recommenced together with their store “jingle” in their advertisements even including it their radio station, “Asda FM”. Their purpose is to provide instant name recall of Asda in connection to low prices. This advertisement campaign is supported by winning the award in the category for the “Lowest Price Supermarket” given by The Grocer magazine for 12 consecutive years.
However, they were advised by the Advertising Standards Agency to stop using their slogan after Tesco, a supermarket competitor, complained. According to the Advertising Standards Agency, the survey conducted by the award-giving body was only founded on inadequate evidence as only thirty-three products from different large supermarkets were compared and then formed as its basis. In consequence, Asda changed their slogan to “Winner: Britain’s lowest price supermarket award”.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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