Description

«Back to School» is a critical commercial period when demand for school-related categories surges, giving retailers a rare opportunity to strengthen their position with younger audiences and convert their attention into real, measurable sales.

AUCHAN is one of the largest retail chains in Russia, operating 231 stores in three formats, as well as an online store auchan.ru. It sells a wide range of products, from food and groceries to household, electronics, clothing, and home & garden goods.

For AUCHAN this BTS season became a pivotal growth point for business performance. With demographic decline and a shrinking core customer base, it was crucial for AUCHAN not only to stay visible but to generate tangible commercial impact by attracting teenagers and their families.

But it was far from «easy money». The season presented real strategic challenges that directly affected core business metrics:

- Insufficient brand value for teenagers. The brand has low recognition among teens: 90% cannot clearly articulate what makes AUCHAN better than competitors*. Top of Mind and spontaneous awareness, as well as consideration levels, are weak. AUCHAN isn’t associated with emotional value or a broad school supply range — both critical factors for kids*.

- Declining offline traffic. The convenience of marketplaces — especially their assortment and pricing in school supplies** — continues to pull customers away.

- Low media investment and Share of Voice. AUCHAN’s spending was below market average, with Share of Voice lagging behind marketplaces and other retailers***. This reduced its ability to compete for audience attention in a dense, uniform BTS communication clutter.

These challenges hit key business metrics— traffic, basket size, revenue — and demanded more than a creative idea.

To reverse the negative trend, we couldn’t rely on guesswork or generic seasonal messaging. We needed a campaign designed to deliver measurable commercial outcomes — and that required deeply understanding what truly drives purchase decisions during the BTS season.

So we conducted in-depth research to uncover behavioral triggers, going beyond the obvious «parents control the budget» assumption. Our research uncovered a critical business insight: it is children who initiate product choices and influence the final place of purchase**.

This insight became the foundation of a results-driven strategy. If children were the ones steering the shopping journey, to achieve business growth, we had to prioritize them as the primary audience — creating a campaign that spoke to their interests first — while addressing parents’ rational needs second.

So we repositioned our audience approach:

- Primary audience — schoolchildren aged 12–17, who enjoy the BTS season but feel it steals the last carefree days of their summer break. They dream of making shopping vivid, emotional, and social — ideally gamified and shared with friends.

- Secondary audience — parents, who seek convenience: buying all necessary items in one place while saving time and money.

This meant our campaign needed to connect emotional and rational drivers in one seamless experience. We chose to focus on creating a unique phygital experience — — emotional, engaging, and encouraging store visits — which directly converted into business results. The promotion also emphasized AUCHAN as the most convenient and value-driven shopping destination for parents.

Every element of the creative concept was designed with business performance metrics in mind, ensuring the emotional connection would translate into measurable results.

- Game mechanics in Roblox directly led the audience toward purchases.
Roblox — a platform with 54% penetration among Russian children**** — became the centerpiece of the campaign. We created a Back-to-School marketplace within Roblox that, through gaming and social shopping with friends, naturally guided them toward AUCHAN’s offline stores.

- Phygital promo mechanics designed to boost offline sales.
Instead of standard cashback or physical prizes, participants could win Robux (Roblox currency highly sought-after in Russia) and «Ashbacks» — AUCHAN’s own branded Roblox currency for purchases made in AUCHAN’s offline stores and e-commerce.

- A unique ambassador to maximize reach and conversion.
A Roblox influencer with over 10 million followers became the face of the campaign, engaging kids on three levels: as a virtual character in Roblox, as a performer at an in-store concert, and as a blogger on Likee livestreams.

- Promo materials balancing the needs of both audiences.
Social media platforms (VK, Telegram) and in-store POSM communicated campaign benefits to children while highlighting convenience and savings for parents.

This wasn’t just about awareness — it was a conversion-oriented ecosystem that linked digital engagement with measurable in-store results.

The campaign proved to be a catalyst for business performance. Despite limited media investment, it delivered multiple increases in key commercial metrics, outperforming nearly all KPIs.

Business Results:
+53% increase in the share of school supplies in the receipt compared to the same period last year (KPI exceeded by 28 percentage points);
+106% growth in the average ticket size for the category vs. same period last year (KPI exceeded by 56 percentage points);
+15.7% increase in offline store traffic during the campaign compared to the pre-campaign period (KPI exceeded by 5.7 percentage points);
668,437 promocodes issued as part of the receipt-based promo (KPI exceeded by 33.7%).

Marketing Results:
ROI of 1046% (KPI exceeded by 946 percentage points);
+4 pp increase in first brand recall among the 12–17 audience (KPI exceeded by 2 percentage points);
+4 pp increase in spontaneous brand awareness among 12–17 audience (KPI exceeded by 1 percentage point);
+3 pp increase in «Most likely to use» metric among 12–17 audience (KPI met);
+2 pp increase in «Easy to explain why it’s better than others» metric (KPI met);
+7 pp increase in spontaneous AUCHAN ad awareness among 12–17 audience (KPI exceeded by 2 pp; up from zero baseline);
+5 pp increase in prompted AUCHAN ad awareness among 12–17 audience (KPI met).

Technical / Media Results:
Campaign reach of 21,500,000 users (KPI exceeded by 22.8%);
+20% growth in followers under 25 years old (KPI exceeded by 5 percentage points);
Engagement rate (ER) of 8.62% on social media during the campaign (KPI exceeded by 2.62 percentage points);
Growth of active AUCHAN Roblox users by 3.2 million, reaching a total of 5.2 million monthly active users (MAU) (KPI exceeded by 320%)*****.

*Mediascope, BrandPulse, 2024
**Qualitative interviews, AUCHAN, 2024
***Digital Budget, 2024
**** IOM-Anketolog, 2024
***** AUCHAN internal data, 2024; digital and contractor agency data, 2024; Mediascope, BrandPulse, 2024

Credits

AUCHAN
Head of Digital Communications Group: Alena Isaeva
Marketing Director: Galina Yashchuk
Digital Communications Manager: Elena Rytikova
Social Media Manager: Alexandra Bogatova

Realweb
Account Manager: Sabina Gasymova
Head of Communication Strategy Group: Olga Nikuradze
Creative Director: Yuri Puchkov
PR and Brand Development Manager: Gleb Raytses

DVOR Agency
Founder & CEO of DVOR: Dmitry Voronov

Starlink
Head of Client Relations in Creative: Arina Prokopovich