What is Safeway® trying to do to me?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Side-by-side comparison of the sale ads that were choking my mailbox this morning:

Front page:

Safeway…Shoppers Food Warehouse
Sodas…Chuck Roast
Spaghetti sauce…Fresh corn
Potty paper…Whole turkeys
Win a Chrysler Cruiser!..OJ
…Cheerios
…Sodas

Page 2:

Chips…Frozen dinners
Popcorn…Waffles
Graham cracker thingies…Hot pockets (yum)
Assorted candy…Bread
Cookies…Potty paper
More Soda!..Paper towels
Still more soda!..Corn oil
Gatorade…Rice a Roni
Guess what? More soda!…Pancake mix

Page 3:

Cookies…Deli meats
Pop Tarts…Flowers (for mom, y’know)
Rasin bread
Syrup
Aspartame
Strawberry preserves
Assorted sugary cereals

Page 4:

At this point, Safeway starts getting their act together- offering some actual food instead of various forms of solid & liquid sugar. They actually spend most of page six on Healthy Choice™ meals & bagels. Then they blow it on page seven with ice cream, churros, non-dairy whipped topping (OK so there’s yogurt too, big hooey). Household stuff on page eight. Page nine offers an assortment of bread, pre-assembles salad, beer & wine.

Shoppers goes on to offer (5) assorted breads, deli cheeses, fish & shrimp, (6) assorted cuts of meat & sausage, (7) chicken pieces, four kinds of steak, bacon. I can go for pages until I get to another mention of soda. 90+% of the ad leans toward meats, breads seafood & produce (fruits & veggies).

Is Safeway just trying to appeal to the pot smoker in all of us? Cookies, chips, soda, ice cream, and don’t forget all that soda! All-in-all, Safeway (about 30) beats Shoppers (about six) on junk food ads by five to one. Heaven help you if your kids, rummaging through the paper in search of the comics, get hold of that ad before you do.

Forgive the dots; couldn’t figure out another way to make the columns work.

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2

Try the CODE command:


***Safeway***                 ***Shoppers Food Warehouse***
Sodas                   Chuck Roast
Spaghetti sauce         Fresh corn
Potty paper             Whole turkeys
OJ                      Cheerios

[/QUOTE]

It will keep your original formatting, even if you include things like the BOLD or ITALIC commands that seem to throw it off skelter.

I AM THE MASTER OF THE TEST POST!

3

Well, yeah, the stores are competing for different market niches. I would naturally assume that a store with a name like “Shoppers Warehouse” is going to be more focused on value for your dollar.

4

opus, you obviously aren’t sufficiently addic…er, devoted to the SDMB if you have time to read the Safeway flyer at all, let alone in such detail.

Actually, I’ve been clueless, since returning to the DC area, as to what Safeway’s market niche is. SFW and Food Lion are both way less expensive than Safeway; Giant has much better selection. Produce, meat, bakery stuff at both Giant and SFW are excellent; I’m not sure how Safeway stacks up against them in those categories, but they can’t be much better.

Is there something I’m missing here, or do people shop at Safeway because that’s where they’ve always shopped?

5

Well sure, best bang for the buck award goes to SFW, and I go there whenever possible. But Safeway is four blocks away from me and I just happen to find myself in the area. Similarly, 7-11 is one block away and I go there occasionally for a $3 gallon of milk :rolleyes:. For SFW, I have to drive (ugh) to VA or MD, so I do that once a month for the big load.

What pray tell, is the market niche that Safeway’s junk food ad campaign is aiming for? I was questioning Safeway’s responsible advertising, or lack thereof. Also, since I made no mention of price versus value in my OP, I’m not sure what your statement is in response to.

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