Can Tesco recover from its PR disaster in time for Christmas?

By Sasha Cooper

It’s official; one of the biggest UK supermarkets has hit rock bottom. Over the past few months Tesco has been hit with scandal after its profits had been overestimated by £263 million. Consequently its shares had plummeted 6.5% in one day alone and The Serious Fraud Office has started to investigate, which could take years.

And now with one of the most profitable periods of time for retail coming up, Christmas could be what saves Tesco from the brink of oblivion.

But how much will this scandal affect its reputation? The biggest supermarket giants have all been suffering because of the rise of Aldi and Lidl. By the end of September, Aldi’s profits had risen 65.2% to £260.9m to the year to 31st December 2013, and though Lidl did not state it’s profits, saled reached £3.3 billion in 2013. This is whilst Tesco had announced a 91.9% plunge in pre-tax profits to £112 million for the first half of the year.

Trust and loyalty are key aspects which Tesco will need to reclaim back off of the public. With the release of new Christmas Adverts these themes are very central in order to catch a large part of the Christmas rush. Interestingly in its previous adverts, there was always a focus on price and how cheap Tesco could be. In these two however there is none; making the company look like it cares about you.

One of its adverts focuses on family which for the customer should be something they deeply care about around Christmas time in many different situations which makes it seem like as a company, they too understand and care about every kind of family. Another of its adverts looks at its Wigan store and tells the viewers that they listen, as they listen to a customer’s tweet about wanting a Christmas hat on the store sign.

Whether these videos will work in luring customers back is yet to be seen, but their Youtube Channel now contains a whole section on making Christmas special. The attempt to reach out is still there, but it is yet to be seen if the public will catch on and continue to distrust the brand.