CHICAGO: Walgreens, the drugstore chain, is seeking to become the “most-loved” player in its category, with an emphasis on enhancing its business and driving customer loyalty.

Adam Holyk, SVP/CMO for the Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreen Co., discussed this subject at the P2P Summit, an event held by the Path to Purchase Institute.

“Our brand vision is to be America’s most-loved, pharmacy-led health, wellbeing and beauty company,” he said. (For more details, read WARC’s in-depth report: Walgreens’ brand reinvention helps drive business transformation.)

“We are a healthcare brand. We are a retail brand. And we need to be very focused on our target consumer and ensure we deliver what she is looking for today.”

One example is making sure that the products on its shelves truly match with its brand vision as it becomes “the expert offering curated solutions to help our customers,” Holyk said.

“We sell many products. Arguably, we sell too many products in our stores today,” he added. “We want to sell the products that customers want.”

A similar philosophy applies to value. Discounts and reward points were once the core markers for defining this term, but Walgreens intends to carve out more strategic pricing zones, run fewer deals, and offer greater choice.

The company will also make greater use of the data generated by members of its loyalty program to supply more personalized offers.

It will apply the “deep knowledge from loyalty data” like never before, Holyk continued, to curate merchandise, develop and target health and beauty services, and guide a new cadre of expert team members, among other tactics.

Through these efforts – and supplementary strategies, like providing delivery options such as a free ship-to-store service – Walgreens hopes to stand out in an increasingly competitive category.

By doing so, it aims to tap into a powerful force in the consumer marketplace. “Today, the real currency is trust,” Holyk told the P2P assembly. “It’s the penetrating truth we learned from primary research,” he said.

Sourced from WARC