Supermarket’s falling prices – and ‘falling’ billboard – go viral

But they got a lot more attention than they bargained for at the weekend when the billboard went viral and was seen by people throughout Britain, and even further afield. 

The OOH campaign shows an arrow facing downwards and surrounded by an array of grocery items. The payoff line is “New lower prices on hundreds of your favourites”. To highlight the downward spiral of prices at Waitrose, the billboard was mounted on a wall at an angle. 

So far so good. Until a member of the public spotted the lop-sided billboard, thought it was about to fall, and alerted local authorities. Workers from Wandsworth council rushed to the scene and cordoned off the immediate area with red-and-white emergency fencing. 

Opportunity to leverage the campaign 

Spotting an opportunity to leverage their OOH campaign, the Waitrose marketing team took to X (formerly Twitter). In a post, which tagged the council, it said: “Thanks for the swift action, but while our prices are falling rapidly, our billboard certainly isn’t!” 

Soon the council workers were back at the scene, this time to remove the safety cordon. 

A Wandsworth council spokesperson told The Guardian newspaper: “We were alerted to this unusual advert by a concerned member of the public and, while we could see it might be deliberately set up to look that way, we thought it better not take any chances with public safety, so put up some barriers to be on the safe side. 

“Once we’d spoken to Waitrose and established it was designed to look this way we removed the barriers straight away.” 

The result for the Waitrose OOH campaign? Coverage by traditional media outlets and social media platforms throughout Britain … and even as far afield as Africa!