Who Won The Week Pt. 13

In our 13th outing, we visit zip code 98109 in upscale King County, Seattle. This zip code has a population of 34,551 and its characteristics of high median income ($130k) and a high rental percentage (80%) corroborate with a youthful population - median age of residents is 32.4.

The Contenders

We selected three banners in this zip code; QFC (A Kroger Banner), Safeway and, a super-small regional banner, Metropolitan Market - a 10 store chain owned by Good Food Holdings. Of these three banners, Metropolitan Market only runs a digital ad, the other two run both print and digital. While saving costs, a digital-only weekly ad has the combined disadvantages of reduced offer quantity and lower offer density. Although, Metropolitan Market's digital ad looks very clean, and they have gone out on a strong peach-theme this week.

Banner	Ad Week Start	Ad Type	HQ Zipcode
QFC	Wednesday	Print/Digital	98004
Metropolitan Market	Wednesday	Digital	98004
Safeway	Wednesday	Print/Digital	94588

As far as the Kroger banner, QFC, we see this ad-formula every week. Invariably, they run a chicken promo in the top-left block and customers could grow to expect this each week. Potentially this means Kroger banners could be gamed by a more dynamic competitor.

Who Won

Despite a formulaic looking ad, QFC won the week on the Customer interest metric. While Safeway's printed ad delivered high offer density, their promos weren't able to attract the interest of our AI Shoppers.

Key Takeaways

Customer understanding is key to delivering a strong weekly ad and Kudos to Kroger for giving QFC license to tailor part of their weekly promotions to local items (NW Cherries / Sockeye Salmon). This helped them win the week. Unsurprisingly, Metropolitan Market's more premium pricing puts it out of contention but it attracted more customer interest than Safeway's ad. They also tried harder to generate customer interest in a non-week as far as sales go, devoting the majority of their prime blocks to peach-themed promotions.