CORK, Ireland – With the recession making consumers more price conscious, the largest Irish convenience store chain has changed its marketing message to emphasize value, the Irish Times reports.

Centra started a three-year sponsorship of a soap opera as part of its campaign to increase sales of the company’s private-label products. “The sponsorship of ‘Emmerdale’ will allow Centra to communicate our own-brand range…There are over 790 products in the range and our challenge is to get across that message of the good quality of the own-brand product at cheaper prices,” said Ray Kelly, Centra’s marketing director.

Also as part of the sponsorship, Centra will introduce a Free Friday promo that will give free private-label products each Friday to give customers a taste the products.

“We spent a lot of money on TV advertising in the second half of last year. We will spend as much on advertising again in 2010, on top of the ‘Emmerdale’ sponsorship. Our research tells us that we are starting to differentiate ourselves from the other convenience stores,” said Kelly.

Irish convenience store sales have dropped by an estimated 10 percent last year as shoppers abandoned the stores for discount stores. City and town locations have been especially hit hard, with traffic dropping by as much as 15 percent.

Centra is banking on bringing back those customers with its lower-priced private-label products. “Sales of our packaged own-brand products are growing at over 30 percent year per annum and now represent 17 percent of overall sales,” said Kelly. “The smart shoppers understand that own brands are of the same quality as the leading brands and are up to 33 percent cheaper.”