Supermarket Expansion

Situation

A Farmer’s Market, with 28 stores, was founded in San Diego, CA in 1943.  They had slowly expanded throughout San Diego and Orange County over the next 66 years.  They had received many accolades as “best place to buy produce,” “best health food store,” best value,” etc.  Now, they wanted to enter the tough and huge Los Angeles area.  They asked us to help inform consumers in Los Angeles about their quality, lower prices than their competitors and their success, to literally introduce their brand. 

Problem

While they were basically unknown throughout the Greater Los Angeles area, and their main competition (Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s), were well established, our client wanted to build their brand name and let potential customers know they had the same high quality produce, meats and other grocery items, but at significantly lower prices. 

Solution

We created high-visibility promotions for each store opening to attract consumers and media.  One tactic was to create human-interest stories for the media revolving around the bad economy angle, with interviews of newly-hired employees who drastically changed jobs, for example, from a stock broker to a manager in the produce department.  Another tactic was for the markets to give a free bag of pre-selected groceries to the first 200 people in the line for each opening.  Hundreds of customers lined up in the middle of the night for a chance to get the free groceries.  In addition, we publicized that their nutritionist was conducting free health seminars at each market, on certain dates.

Benefits

We received a tremendous amount of media coverage for each event (we’ve done three so far).  Several TV crews covered each opening, airing news about our client, and the top Los Angeles, all-news radio station, came at 4 a.m. to the first opening to interview people in line and then inside the store when it opened.  A “live” report aired every hour from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.  We received coverage in the local papers for each opening, including a leading story on the front page of the huge Daily News and other papers, as well as major TV newscasts and radio news shows.  We also obtained online exposure with Social Media.

All of these openings were hugely successful and the president told us that the Woodland Hills opening (our first for them) was the most successful opening they’ve had in their company’s history, and today, is still their highest-grossing store, due to the successful publicity launch we did for them…and our client is now a recognizable brand in the Greater Los Angeles area.

For more information, contact Leo Pearlstein, 323-938-3300, www.leeassociates.com.