New Giant Food ad campaign reminds shoppers to savor the little moments

Dive Brief:

Giant Food is launching a new marketing campaign called “The Little Things are Giant,” which will highlight the connections created with family and friends over shared food. The campaign will have a holiday focus through the new year, highlighting Giant’s product assortment and easy shopping experience.
Giant’s agency of record, RP3 Agency based in Washington, D.C., worked with Giant to create the campaign, which will be conducted in both English and Spanish across social, traditional and digital media. Giant Food holiday commercials are already posted on YouTube.
“We say in our new tagline ‘The Little Things are Giant’ because it's about the seemingly small moments which are the ones we live for. More time for you. More time for family. More time for the things that really matter. Giant wants to make great food easy so you can live your life and enjoy those moments,” John MacDonald, vice president and chief marketing officer at Giant, said in a press release.

Dive Insight:

Giant is launching this marketing campaign just in time to connect with people during the busy holiday season while they are feeling particularly warm toward family, friends and togetherness — but also while they are looking to simplify their lives and save money so they can enjoy this time of year. The idea of celebrating “little moments” will remind customers that the everyday parts of life are important — even the daily routines such as mealtime and grocery shopping.

It appears that Ahold Delhaize is putting its marketing team to work elsewhere, too. Stop & Shop also announced a new ad campaign last month, which is focused on showing “real” people and helping families spend more time together. This new campaign is likely an effort to spur growth and boost shopping at Stop & Shop. Despite strong Q3 sales, growth this year has been slower for Ahold Delhaize than last, and Stop & Shop, in particular, hasn’t been performing as well as expected.

The approach to reach customers on a personal level, rather than just with sales and deals, is a smart one if done authentically. In today’s over-saturated media environment where people are bombarded with ads and marketing messages, retailers need to show that they’re doing more than just selling a product. Recent statistics show that 90% of millennials, 85% of Gen Xers and 80% of baby boomers say authenticity helps them determine which brand to support. Marketing agencies and executives are likely aware of these numbers and are encouraging the brands and companies they work with to create more meaningful campaigns.

Creating marketing campaigns that offer emotional appeals is certainly not unique to food retailers. A quick search of “best ad campaigns” in a given year yields dozens of other examples of strong marketing and advertising. Last year, Pinterest created a campaign called “What If,” which inspired people to try new things and challenge themselves. Outdoor brand Patagonia launched a campaign that encouraged customers to fight to protect public lands. On the grocery side, British supermarket chain Sainsbury conducted a successful holiday ad campaign in 2017 that focused on sharing the gift of reading — showing that the company cared about more than just the products it could sell to shoppers.

Grocers regularly unveil new ad campaigns, and for most major companies, ad spends are a given in their annual budgets. Of particular interest this year, Aldi recently launched a new ad campaign called “Shop Differentli” to highlight how U.S. shoppers could benefit from shopping at Aldi, and Lidl aimed to get U.S. customers to “rethink” grocery with a new campaign earlier this year. While they haven’t launched holiday focused campaigns in the U.S., both retailers are also conducting holiday ads in Europe.

For Ahold Delhaize, which has invested heavily in things like e-commerce, store remodels and new store concepts such as Giant Heirloom markets, ad campaigns are an additional tactic aimed at boosting sales and connecting with customers. While they offer a "feel good" vibe for the coming months, it doesn’t appear that the company is banking on advertising alone.