Discount grocery banner Food Basics is launching a new click-and-collect service in its first bid to enter the lucrative e-commerce space.

The grocer is promoting the move with a new campaign – developed alongside creative partner Open – that features AI-generated visuals of food as the centrepiece.

“The influence of AI played a crucial role in defining this campaign’s visual identity,” says Mathieu Robitaille, head of marketing for Metro Ontario, which owns the Food Basics banner.

The service is rolling out this month, with plans to offer customers the same range of products they might find on the shelves of a physical store, as well as weekly promos and in-store offers.

“This is a new service offering, so it needed to feel distinctly Food Basics, but also stand out as exciting news for our existing customer base,” says Katie Chan, director of marketing for the grocer. “What better way to launch a digital service than to use AI?”

The campaign has launched across geotargeted digital and social, with in-store POS across the chain’s 144 Ontario locations, as well as targeted email marketing.

The AI imagery helped the discount brand deliver a visually rich campaign with greater cost effectiveness and flexibility, because it did not have to book a studio or round up samples of real food, while the images still “really speak to the speed and ease of online grocery shopping at Food Basics,” says Anne Ngo, director of client services at Open.

“We were interested in diving head first into AI. It’s a great addition to our toolbox,” says Martin Beauvais, partner at the agency. “We don’t view AI as a threat to our services, but rather as a great complement to creativity.”