Dive Brief:

• Lowes Foods has launched a new marketing campaign called “Choptober” to highlight its Pick and Prep stations that slice, dice, seed and prepare fresh produce for customers while they shop in stores.

• At the heart of the campaign is a humorous ad that plays on personal injury lawyer commercials, which includes a phone number that will connect customers with an actual hotline where they can select from produce that caused personal injuries like “guacamole elbow” or “onion eyes.”

• The campaign includes similarly themed ad spots on TV, video, social, display and digital, which will run for six weeks this summer. New York City-based ad agency Walrus developed the concept for Lowes Foods.

Dive Insight:

Walrus CEO Deacon Webster told Campaign U.S. that the firm was inspired to name Lowes’ event after the Crazy Eddie electronics commercials in the 1980s that promoted Presidents’ Day sales in August.  

The ad plays spotlights a "produce butcher" service that many grocers have implemented over the past several years. Lowes Pick and Prep stations have been around since at least 2014, and are seen as a way to draw customers back into stores as they continue to spend more time at home cooking during COVID-19. 

Lowes selected Walrus as its creative agency of record last November, noting the scope of work would include a campaign to highlight its entertaining in-store assets including Pick and Prep, Beer Den and Chicken Kitchen.

The grocer has toyed around with humor in its ads before. In 2017, Lowes Foods created a campaign to advertise refreshed stores and garnered some attention for its fill-in-the-blank phrasing. A senior vice president of brand strategy at Lowes told the Winston-Salem Journal at the time that the company wanted to create something that would “stand out among the more than 5,000 ad exposures most consumers see every day.”

Humorous advertising isn’t a go-to strategy for all retailers, but several of them have taken that route in recent efforts. Kroger made a digital series with actor Jeff Goldblum called "Cooking with Jeff" to appeal to younger shoppers. 

Last year, Giant Food launched a funny ad campaign portraying families waiting in their cars for groceries to promote Giant Direct’s pickup service. Lidl also turned to humor to help improve its image as it tackled U.S. expansion in 2018.