Who Won The Week Pt. 8
After a big spending weekend we turn our attention to a new zip code and a different flavor of grocery retailer. With over 90 banners and 20400 locations mapped we are starting to find some real gems. Especially in the city of Newark, CA. Sitting on the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay. It has a population of 46,000 and is within 30 miles of the headquarters of two large banners, Safeway and Grocery Outlet.
Read on to see how the retailers performed or watch a video here of the results.
| Banner | Start Of Ad Week | Page Count | HQ Zip Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safeway | Wednesday | 10 | 94588 |
| Grocery Outlet | Wednesday | 4 | 94608 |
| 99 Ranch Market | Thursday | 1 (web only) | 90620 |
| Sprouts | Wednesday | 1 (web only) | 85054 |
The Front Pages
These four banners represent a mix of web-only and web+print weekly ads. As with previous weeks we are just using the front pages and using our generic USA AI shoppers to evaluate the promotions. The front pages, below, show two ends of the design / layout spectrum, ranging from the sparse, Grocery Outlet, to the dense, Safeway.
Who Won
We judge the winner on two metrics, Breadth of Appeal and Potential For Driving Share. Ideally, a retailer wants to win on both - featuring the hot items to drive share combined with breadth of promos to help seal the deal. This week is a little different, and while Safeway got the top spot on Breadth of Appeal with two thirds of our AI shoppers selecting a front page item, it didn't have the hot item. That accolade went to Sprouts. Nearly 70% of shoppers ranked three of their items as their top item. For that degree of pinpoint precision, we think they are worthy winners this week.
Key Take Aways
Sometimes less is more, when your competitors are filling their front pages with a 'spray-and-pray' approach - as we have seen in previous weeks - an easier to read design can drive effectiveness especially if you have strong promos running, as we saw with Sprouts this week. The counterpoint to this strategy is Grocery Outlet. Since their business model is about maximizing yield, using the weekly ad to drive units of specific items needs to take priority. The items featured are probably very close to their use-by-dates, as reflected by the deep discounts on each item.
99 Ranch Market, with 60+ stores is perhaps one of the largest regional grocer you have never heard of, had a noteworthy performance against three much larger banners. Four of its featured promos (Shrimp, Mushroom and Coconut milk x2) were selected by our AI shoppers this week.