Customers in Search of Pollen
- Reimagined Sainsbury’s customers as bees to promote environmentally conscious shopping.
- Redesigned the shopping journey and community experience from the perspective of local plants.
- Explored the potential of emotion-based rewards by narrowing the scope.
Turning Customers into Bees
© Getty Images The mechanism of pollination © BBC
What if customers at Sainsbury’s, like bees seeking nectar from flowers, could positively influence the local ecosystem through sustainable consumption? Inspired by the Nectar programme, we focused on the behaviour of bees—not only their role in pollination, but also their ability to build strong communities. A key insight was that customers could make a positive environmental impact without even being aware of it. So we decided to turn customers into bees. “Be a Bee.”
Two Pathways
Pollination process © Group Dasida
As we explored nectar and bee behaviour, we discovered two particularly interesting aspects. The first was the bees’ process of carrying nectar. Bees travel between flowers to collect nectar, storing it in the pollen baskets on their legs. In doing so, pollen sticks to their bodies and gets transferred to other flowers—pollination happens unintentionally. We saw parallels in how customers search for and carry eco-friendly products. Key themes emerged: exploration, transportation, and packaging.
The second point of interest was the interaction between bees. Through the “bee dance,” they share information about the best flower sources, and they live cooperatively, much like ants. Rather than seeing bees as individuals, the hive functions as one interconnected organism. This made us consider how to foster interaction among loyalty programme members. Just as bees dance and collaborate instinctively, loyalty members could also build shared rituals and pursue mutual goals as a collective.
This led us to a crossroads. Should we focus on enhancing the individual shopping experience, or should we design community-based interactions?
If I Were a Plant…
Although our concept was beginning to take shape, we needed to clarify our direction. So we reframed the project from a different perspective: “If I were a plant running a loyalty system, what would I do?”
What does it mean for a plant to “run” a system? We wanted to imagine a future in which plants influence human decisions. From store layout and signage to product placement, customer behaviour, and reward structures—all redesigned through a plant’s point of view.
So what do local plants want and need? Our answer is emotional connection. More attention, gratitude, and affection. We began to imagine ideas such as “free-hug trees” or friendly plant guardians placed throughout the store to encourage human–plant bonds.
The Customer’s Shopping Journey
From our brainstorming sessions, we devised new ways to incorporate gratitude and plant-awareness into various customer touchpoints. The store entrance could be designed like a garden, with flower arrangements and a plant-rich environment. Inside, there could be dedicated eco-product sections, or warning labels and visual dividers (like “plant curtains”) for animal-based products to discourage carbon-intensive consumption.
Customers who choose sustainable products could access an “eco-priority checkout,” and receive reward points by answering short environmental quizzes during payment. As they leave, they could express gratitude to nature by interacting with trees placed at the exit—perhaps by offering gestures of thanks or affection.
When Plants Lead, What Follows?
We realised that dealing with all regional plant species would stretch the scope too wide. So we decided to narrow our focus to the in-store shopping experience. Yet even this approach posed challenges: too many touchpoints risked fragmenting the design. Realistically, it was not feasible to address every possible element. There were limits to what we could design, and it became clear that we needed to make strategic choices.
We also questioned whether emotional rewards—like pride, gratitude, or a sense of belonging—could effectively drive customer behaviour without financial incentives. How could we build a loyalty system truly led by plants, from the ground up? More experimentation and feedback would be essential.
Reference
- BBC Bitesize. n.d. Pollination. [online] BBC Bitesize. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/ztj88hv#zmwkkty [Accessed 17 Apr. 2025].
- Sainsbury's. (2025). Avoca-don't Miss This: Sainsbury's Debuts Plastic-Free Packaging for Avocados. [online] Available at: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/news/latest-news/2025/13-01-2025-sainsburys-debuts-plastic-free-packaging-for-avocados [Accessed 17 Apr. 2025].
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