While supermarket advertising plays up the ritual of the big weekly shop, convenience stores go the other direction, promoting the idea of grocery shopping as an “effortless everyday occurrence”.

A new television campaign for Spar portrays customers engaged in various leisure activities including painting, yoga, bird-watching and, er, water-skiing. Using the tagline "get your life back", it suggests that convenience shopping habits have freed up time to allow them to pursue their interests.

The “EuroCrunch” campaign is part of a €900,000 marketing investment by Spar owner BWG Foods and it also includes the sale of products at rounded price points of €1, €2 and €3 in a bid to offset the perception that convenience stores are more expensive.

"We wanted the campaign, and the new TV advertisement in particular, to reflect the modern meaning of convenience shopping in Ireland," says BWG Foods marketing and communications director Suzanne Weldon. The ad, created by advertising agency Publicis, will debut next Friday and will run throughout 2014.