Asda to launch election 2010 website to encourage mums to blog

The supermarket giant is recruiting ‘Asda mums' to keep an online diary on a new Election 2010 website, which is due to be launched this week.

The idea follows Asda's dec­ision to open up its website to online Q&A sessions with politicians from the three main parties.

Each party's leader will also be posting a video on the website.

Asda head of corporate comms Dominic Burch told PRWeek that the digital initiatives are aimed at ‘driving up engagement and engaging more people with the brand'.

‘We just see this as an opp­ortunity to get closer to our customers,' said Burch.

‘Asda mum is going to be an important stakeholder in the election.'

The political activity follows the steady rollout of the Your Asda social media website over the past year, along with an expanded presence on Twitter and YouTube.

The initiative was described as a ‘smart move' by Mandate head of digital Mark Pack, who previously oversaw digital comms for the Liberal Democrats. ‘For Asda it will mean more engagement with its customers, more knowledge about what its customers think, people spending more time on its web properties and positive PR,' he said.

‘It's a smart com­bination of benefiting the company and the public good.'

Wolfstar deputy MD Mark Hanson agreed: ‘Asda is being smart in gaining traction online by using its assets.'

This article was first published on prweek.com