Tesco’s new Love Every Mouthful campaign moves the focus firmly on to product quality and is part of the grocer’s on-going efforts to get the food business back on track and clean up an image tarnished by the horse meat scandal.

The Love Every Mouthful campaign has been launched across a range of media, and features two TV ads.

One of the ads promotes the quality of the Tesco’s general food offer, such as the “family gatherer” of a cooked roast chicken and declares it is time to show food “some love”. The energetic ad proceeds with a flurry of quick cuts showing people cooking and enjoying eating, ending with the strapline ‘Love Every Mouthful’.

By agency Wieden + Kennedy, this engaging campaign, which includes a second ad hailing the grocer’s strawberries, is well-executed and jam-packed with delicious visuals of food as it flies by at a speedy pace, while Tesco’s point of sale and press activity ties in nicely.

Yet, the ad is derivative of other grocer’s marketing campaigns, with stylistic shades of Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose ads. It also touches on the provenance of its sourcing, which both Waitrose and Morrisons have recently highlighted with visuals of farmers et al on location.

These well-known advertising tropes are intended to communicate quality, which Kantar Retail director of retail insights Bryan Roberts says is timely for the grocer following improvements in Tesco’s store offer and product.

Roberts says refocusing on quality and fresh food is long overdue and adds: “Price has been a big theme over the last few years, but is one part of the value proposition. If it is not backed by appropriate quality and service then it is pretty meaningless.”

Though Roberts concedes that components of the campaign are not original, it is “distinctly Tesco”. Following a Retail Week consumer poll discovering that the grocer is shoppers’ number one choice for fresh food, this campaign should continue to position the grocer as one that sells quality food.

Tesco Love Every Mouthful advert