The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
Lidl rolled out its new U.S. branding campaign this week, and it looks like the discount food retailer is finally ready to define itself as, well, a grocer. The German retailer is now calling itself “The Super-est Market,” wording that’s clearly designed to encourage shoppers to think of Lidl as a supermarket — and a sharp departure from its former effort to position its stores as spooky places with “suspiciously low-priced groceries.”
According to the company’s chief customer officer, Frank Kerr, Lidl’s goal is to resonate with shoppers as an “emotional, connected brand” that convinces people to think of grocery shopping as more of an experience than an errand. Research the company conducted showed that only 58% of people in Lidl’s U.S. markets knew the retailer was a grocer, Kerr said during Groceryshop last week.
The company’s new visuals punch up the words “super” and “market” while tamping down emphasis on the word “Lidl,” a change that certainly helps elevate Lidl’s message that it runs grocery stores, not magic shops.
At two stores in Washington, D.C., for example, Lidl has its new “The Super-est Market” tagline on its print flyer, digital screens and plastic shopping bags alongside signage proclaiming “Big Lidl Deals” and “Get a lot for a Lidl.” Lidl’s website and social media also prominently feature “The Super-est Market” visuals.
While the new branding is clearly an attempt to help consumers realize it’s a grocer, only time will tell if it’s very effective — or just a “Lidl.”
@LidlUS’s new “The Super-est Market” branding includes shopping bags, digital signs and print flyers pic.twitter.com/Qc7UnNs916
— Grocery Dive (@GroceryDive) October 18, 2024
In case you missed it
A closer look at Amazon’s robot-run warehouses
Earlier this week, CNBC reported that the retail giant plans to use startup Fulfil’s robotics technology at a Whole Foods Market store piloting a micro-fulfillment center, citing “a person familiar with the matter and other corroborating information.” Amazon and Fulfil both declined to comment to the publication about the usage of Fulfil’s technology.
The MFC pilot at the Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, will allow customers at the store to order items not stocked on the store’s shelves, including items from Amazon’s website and its Amazon Fresh online grocery service.
Bridging financial gaps
Filipino-American grocery chain Island Pacific Seafood Market announced this week that it has teamed with GCash, a financial technology app. GCash, which has millions of users in the Philippines, offers a wide range of financial services, including money transfers, bill payments, bank savings and more, the press release noted.
The partnership will let Filipino shoppers send money, pay bills and access other financial services directly from their local Island Pacific store. Island Pacific customers who use GCash can get exclusive rewards.
Hy-Vee snaps up a local grocery store
The Midwestern grocery chain is buying Webster’s Marketplace in Ripon, Wisconsin, effective Nov. 2, the Ripon Commonwealth Press reported Monday. Second-generation owner/operator and president Candie Webster told the paper that the Webster family received “a very nice, unsolicited offer from Hy-Vee.”
Impulse find
Trick or treat at the grocery store
Halloween is right around the corner and grocers have some frights in the supermarket aisles.
Kroger’s website displayed a ghoulish ice cream — Graeter's Skyline Chili Ice Cream — that Rmd Advertising, which represents Graeter’s, told The Cincinnati Enquirer was “concept art and is not available or in production."
While that ice cream falls under the “trick” category, Reynolds Wrap unveiled its Espresso Turkey-tini — what it calls “a bold holiday pairing of espresso martini and roasted turkey.”
The turkey dressing recipe blends sweet coffee liquor with oranges, espresso beans and fresh herbs. Reynolds Wrap is positioning this as a holiday treat, but, to the Grocery Dive team, this seems more like a Halloween scare.
