PART 3
SNACK ARTIST OVER AND OUT!
SNACK ARTIST OVER AND OUT!
Last week, MikeRa left word under the Part 2 post that the Snack Artist brand was being converted to Signature Select and sure enough... it is. At first I thought the snacks would be co-branded, similar to the refreshe water you'll see down below. That turned out to not be the case. The Snack Artist is officially dead.
REFRESHE BRAND SURVIVES!
The refreshe logo has been updated with less drops and the Signature Select tags are being added to the packaging. Seen only on these cases of water so far. I haven't been able to find any soft drinks with with these updates.
The very last ACME branded item in the store is on its way out. Seeing the logo on these water cases hasn't even been a safe bet for months now. Soon it will be gone for good. The only other hold out I am aware was the garlic bread in the bakery but that has recently been changed over to Signature Select. Will ANYTHING ever say ACME on it again??? Jewel wised up and added their name back on staples like milk and bread but there is no signs Acme will be following suit anytime soon.
As long as the bags and register tape still say "ACME" I'll be fine, lol. I do miss all the Acme-branded products! I remember my first visit in over five years to my local location back in 2011, I remember looking at the shelves and thinking "Where did all the Acme products go?" and shortly thereafter I found your blog, and been reading ever since. The simplification of store brands is a blessing, and a curse.
ReplyDeleteAs much as the ACME brand is missed, you have to admit, the Signature branding, old and new, is miles better than ShopRite store brand products. It really surprises me that with all the profit they make, they cant design better packaging. It's just hideous.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree with that!
DeleteI think it's more a matter of spending money on things customers actually care about--the quality of their products inside the packaging you call "hideous", the speed of checkout, the variety of products inside their store. I think the immense volume of business they do means they are on the right track.
DeleteI think it has to do with ShopRite wanting to maintain a good old fashioned house brand rather than trying to create a seemly high-quality, lower-price alternative to national brands like nearly every other chain is doing these days.
DeleteShopRite is definitely an old-fashioned outfit, but my point is more--when it comes down to it, do you really think the design on the label will make people buy one brand over another?
ReplyDeleteI know things like store-decor and store-brands are highly discussed here on the blog, but I don't really think these items make much of a difference to the average shopper. I think Wakefern’s strength is that they know their target shoppers, have a ton of data on them, and use it to zero-in on the things that really matter to shoppers--like variety, price, convenience, checkout speed, local flavor. They spend less effort on uniform decor, product labeling, store design and the types of things that get us fanboys and fangirls who read the blog excited.
To answer your question.... yes.
ReplyDeleteI've worked both in packaging design and branding. The amount of time and money spent on designing logos and packages is staggering and in the end it's all about getting shoppers to choose one product over the other.
Giant/Martin's/Stop & Shop only has 8 brands, Albertsons has 17 now. Redner's has their own and SuperValu's brands
ReplyDeleteThe Redner’s branded products are some of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. And the quality is bottom of the barrel. I’d pay double any day of the week to shop at Acme over Redner’s.
DeleteI guess you're right, otherwise Aldi wouldn't try so hard to make people forget they are shopping in a generic store full of store brands.
ReplyDeleteAny professional opinions why the top tier of conventional supermarket chains like Wegmans, HEB, Publix, ShopRite...choose to keep their own-brand with the store name on it depite the trend to do what Albertsons/Acme, A&P, Supervalu have done?
It's not so much a trend as it is a money-saving necessity. Supermarket companies running multiple banners create one line of house brands to ship to every store. Saves tons of money on printing packages with different logos and streamlines the distribution process. In the early 2000's, Alberstons was printing each banner's logo on the store brand packages. You could occasionally find Jewel or Shaws products on Acme shelves when someone screwed up at the warehouse. Having one brand solves that problem and drastically reduces the costs of production and distribution. Unfortunately, it also weakens the store brand for all the banners leaving them struggling to build customer loyalty. A little over two years into Acme running the acquired stores from A&P, they are now introducing a THIRD version of their house brands. From a branding standpoint, that is a complete and total disaster.
DeleteThe chains you mentioned keep their own names because they don't have to supply house brands to multiple banners. And isn't it interesting that the ones you listed are among the most successful in the country? Acme is struggling, A&P is dead and SuperValu dumped virtually all of its banners to focus solely on distribution.
Then you have the middle option which the Delhaize brands are using.
DeleteThey started at one point to convert everything to a similar name that could be used in their Food Lion, Hannaford and (then) Bottom Dollar Stores.
Then at some point they stopped that and brought some items back to having the name of the store, while leaving others (seemingly mostly the cheap/more generic end and the fancier/organic end) with a more common name.
So they have more of a mix (some things store name branded and others with a general name like ChaChing or Nature's Place).
Hannaford also now has Ahold USA's etos, CareOne and Companion brands as well. Food Lion does not.
DeleteThe new refreshe water at jewel continues to keep the small store nameplate on the packaging
ReplyDeleteTurns out Acme does too! The logo is in a different spot than it used to be in.
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