March 28, 2012
Piggly Wiggly: ‘Local Since Forever’
Piggy Wiggly Carolina Co. is launching a new campaign with the theme, “Local Since Forever.” The ads will focus on the use of local suppliers and its support for local businesses, as well as the fact that Piggly Wiggly is employee-owned.
“When you shop Piggly Wiggly the money stays right here, where we live,” the narrator states in a television spot, according to The Post & Courier in Charleston, SC.
Known locally as “The Pig,” the company, based in Charleston, operates nearly 100 stores across the state of South Carolina and the coastal Georgia region. It was founded by in 1947 by Joseph Newton Jr. after he purchased a Piggly Wiggly franchise from the Piggly Wiggly Corporation. With the name now owned by C&S Wholesale Grocers, there are more than 600 independently owned and operated stores in 17 Southwestern and Midwestern states, a few owned in groups by firms such as Piggly Wiggly Carolina.
The Piggly Wiggly Carolina campaign launches April 2 with a two-minute TV proclamation celebrating Piggly Wiggly’s local ties and company values. It will then be extended to radio, TV, billboards, newspaper circulars, store signage, collateral and social media. Later this year, the company’s new website will integrate the campaign.
“This campaign feels right,” said David Schools, president and chief executive officer of Piggly Wiggly Carolina, in a statement. “A lot has changed in the world since our company opened its doors in 1947, and this campaign is about honoring what it means to be ‘local’ and what really matters to our loyal customers, the employee-owners who keep our customers returning, and our communities who are proud to call us a neighbor.”
To further feed the local feel, the narrator of the campaign is the American novelist Josephine Humphreys, who sets many of her books, such as Rich in Love, in Charleston. The music is also from state musicians and local customers, employees and suppliers will appear in advertisements and on billboards. The grocer is one of the largest retail companies in the state of South Carolina with over 5,000 employees.
The “Local Since Forever” campaign will replace the chain’s “Feeds Your Life” positioning, first introduced in 2006.
The campaign drops just after Piggy Wiggly Carolina won Progressive Grocer’s 2012 Independent Retailer of the Year.
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions: Are consumers any more or less receptive to “buy local” campaigns today than they have been in the past? What do you think of Piggly Wiggly Carolina’s “Local Since Forever” effort and how might it be enhanced?
Poll
Consumers are more receptive to buy local campaigns. Food safety scares, a desire to help your neighbors economically, concern for the environmental cost of getting food to market and love of quirky local products all contribute to the desire for local food. The new advertising slogan should ring true with consumers, and if the local products are well-priced, in comparison to national brands, should be a hit with consumers.
This is a really smart campaign from Piggly Wiggly. It taps into a few important themes. First, there is, both now and always, a premium value placed on nostalgia. Old brands are resurrected and TV shows like AMC’s “Mad Men” only accentuate this. Look at Nissan reintroducing the Datsun brand, and even Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”
People are looking for relevance and authenticity. These are not served up by Walmart or other big boxes, nor are they legitimately local. Local is relevant. Relevance is engaging.
When consumers are used to living in an environment that hasn’t got thousands of things competing for their time, money and emotions they can focus on the values they prefer to embrace.
One such value in more placid locations is the pride they place on still being local and traditional. It’s like a nostalgic nectar. And to the degree that their discretionary income allows it, they are proudly receptive to “buy local” appeals … particularly if the economic destroyers of that emotion — Walmart and other “big box” retailers — aren’t nearby modifying their nostalgic world. In that “local” sense, I hope “Local Since Forever” buoys up, enhances and preserves an American icon – “The Pig.”
This can be a big winner for Piggly Wiggly. Buying local and keeping the money local is a huge incentive for shoppers today. It is a good campaign to keep Food Lion and the emergance of Publix into the area in the rear view mirror.
This is certainly the right direction because society is recognizing that we have to start looking after ourselves and our own. Big Corp doesn’t care about us, we all know that now.
That said, I think they need to go a lot further. Phrases like “The money stays right here” is still a mechanistic, non-human story. Featuring actual local customers and suppliers is good, but the strength lies in the story told. Let us get to know them, not just have them stand there holding a bunch of carrots. How did they get to that farm? What can they teach us about soil? Are they thinking of growing something new? Is grandfather still cranky because he can’t work the field? Do they sing in the church choir? Are they shopping for a new combine? Make it a mini ‘shop-opera’!
We support who we know.
Great campaign with a great opportunity. “Local” in and of itself doesn’t promise the consumer anything. Maybe feature local brands as part of shopper marketing initiatives? The bigger opportunity: Tap into location-based services such as Foursquare to offer shoppers something tangible when they check in at their local Piggly Wiggly.
I like the “Local Since Forever” campaign, and I think other regional chains ought to take a similar approach.
I hadn’t read Phil’s insightful comments prior to sending in my own, but he is right on point. ‘Authentic relevance is engaging’ and to put a slight twist on it — “Engagement is what’s relevant” to today’s shopping community. More than that, EMOTIONAL engagement is what binds people together. This is more about the feeling than the facts though the facts (benefits of shopping local) have to support the feeling or it will fade over a very short time.
Poor Piggly Wiggly; they are really in for the fight for survival. Walmart is pouring on the coals with its direct attack on Harris Teeter. Now Publix is going to wade in, using Walmart as muscle to put a nice beating on the remaining competitors. All the buzz words like employee owned, press releases, and cute jingles and songs will not be able to mask the fact that Walmart has very low prices and Publix is a cult of customer service fanatics. Three years from now, I wonder if we will be hearing “This campaign feels right.”
Generally speaking, yes, consumers are more concerned with where their food is coming from and there is some appeal in the idea of locally sourced foods and ingredients. The caveats are that the word “local” to some extent risks the overuse and misuse that words like “green” and “sustainable” got. Local is a relative term. Secondly, interest in local product sourcing varies pretty significantly by age. As one might imagine, it tends to be less important to young consumers. So, retailers need to be sure who they’re talking to with “locally sourced” propositions.
I also love this campaign but I agree with Ian — it ought to really be about community, not cash.
I wish them well with this campaign, but consumers are more driven to deals than ever before, and if they have to run over their own mothers to get that hot deal, so be it. David Livingston is right by acknowledging the reality out in the retail world today. Walmart will trounce most of your efforts, and the Dollar stores suck up the rest of your center-store growth, so as nostalgic as we may want to be, it is still going to be tough to gain extra sales without putting a ton of heat into the weekly ads.
Create the “BUZZ” around your perishables, and that is where the growth will come from, plus the profit dollars are there as well. It is the best way to make your mark in the business, and the beauty of it is, the Big Stores will never even bother to try to change their ways, which is good for all of us Independents out there.
Piggly Wiggly’s “Local Since Forever” campaign appears to hit all the right buy local notes. And it even goes a step beyond the typical buy local campaigns we hear from other grocers by broadening “local” to include local musicians, employees and others. Supporting the local community — in multiple ways — still resonates with many shoppers, especially in smaller communities and areas hard hit by the recession.
Some potential campaign additions: highlight the chain’s community initiatives, like for example, the chain’s support of any local non-profits. And, if possible, it would be nice to quantify and publicize the chain’s contributions to the local community via number of jobs, number of locally-sourced products, money funneled back to the community, etc.
“Local Since Forever” won’t forever crush the competition. But it should get a thumbs up from locals and help them rethink the local impact of their shopping dollars.
The Pig campaign is spot on for the customer mindset today of buy local. There is significant buzz around local grown today and consumers are resonding to it much more so than in the past.
Big Y has a similiar campaign in the Northeast.
I love it. They’re pointing out that they’re an authentic “local,” and always were, while their competitors are just using the term because it’s a buzzword. Love Ian’s ideas too. They could also highlight their employees to really draw a picture of how keeping money local is benefiting the local economy.
When I first heard their name many years ago, I couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image it conjured up of a ‘wiggly pig”. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate their tenacity as retailers.
I think consumers are sympathetic to this type of campaign IF you can show them some differentiation. When you really think about what holds back local purchasing in the food category, it is probably as attributable to the Frozen Food Department as it is to anything else. I’ve not been in a Piggly Wiggly lately, but I would believe they need a robust prepared foods section to really support local producers. By offering customers the same “easy meals” made from local purchases, they can encourage the sale of local products. Of course putting in a self-checkout lane is forbidden, that certainly doesn’t help the local economy.
I think consumers appreciate this type of campaign, but location and price point are still important.
My thought is that consumers are somewhat less receptive than in the past, but the reality is they probably never really were … at least not when the wallets actually came out. (And as a side note, I think a franchised operation of a national chain will have a particular lack of credibility, however local the ownership may actually be.)
It sounds like a fun campaign that will generate and build brand awareness. While local sourcing is important — as many have pointed out — local products still have to be affordable. As the primary grocery shopper for my household, I buy local when I can, but generally tend to stay with tried and true brands that have earned my loyalty. And I will shop those stores that give me what I want vs. those that try to make me buy what they want me to buy.
I like it. Seems like a good idea at a good time. And with their new store formats and value proposition, it is likely to work for them.
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Consumers are more receptive to buy local campaigns. Food safety scares, a desire to help your neighbors economically, concern for the environmental cost of getting food to market and love of quirky local products all contribute to the desire for local food. The new advertising slogan should ring true with consumers, and if the local products are well-priced, in comparison to national brands, should be a hit with consumers.
This is a really smart campaign from Piggly Wiggly. It taps into a few important themes. First, there is, both now and always, a premium value placed on nostalgia. Old brands are resurrected and TV shows like AMC’s “Mad Men” only accentuate this. Look at Nissan reintroducing the Datsun brand, and even Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”
People are looking for relevance and authenticity. These are not served up by Walmart or other big boxes, nor are they legitimately local. Local is relevant. Relevance is engaging.
When consumers are used to living in an environment that hasn’t got thousands of things competing for their time, money and emotions they can focus on the values they prefer to embrace.
One such value in more placid locations is the pride they place on still being local and traditional. It’s like a nostalgic nectar. And to the degree that their discretionary income allows it, they are proudly receptive to “buy local” appeals … particularly if the economic destroyers of that emotion — Walmart and other “big box” retailers — aren’t nearby modifying their nostalgic world. In that “local” sense, I hope “Local Since Forever” buoys up, enhances and preserves an American icon – “The Pig.”
This can be a big winner for Piggly Wiggly. Buying local and keeping the money local is a huge incentive for shoppers today. It is a good campaign to keep Food Lion and the emergance of Publix into the area in the rear view mirror.
This is certainly the right direction because society is recognizing that we have to start looking after ourselves and our own. Big Corp doesn’t care about us, we all know that now.
That said, I think they need to go a lot further. Phrases like “The money stays right here” is still a mechanistic, non-human story. Featuring actual local customers and suppliers is good, but the strength lies in the story told. Let us get to know them, not just have them stand there holding a bunch of carrots. How did they get to that farm? What can they teach us about soil? Are they thinking of growing something new? Is grandfather still cranky because he can’t work the field? Do they sing in the church choir? Are they shopping for a new combine? Make it a mini ‘shop-opera’!
We support who we know.
Great campaign with a great opportunity. “Local” in and of itself doesn’t promise the consumer anything. Maybe feature local brands as part of shopper marketing initiatives? The bigger opportunity: Tap into location-based services such as Foursquare to offer shoppers something tangible when they check in at their local Piggly Wiggly.
I like the “Local Since Forever” campaign, and I think other regional chains ought to take a similar approach.
I hadn’t read Phil’s insightful comments prior to sending in my own, but he is right on point. ‘Authentic relevance is engaging’ and to put a slight twist on it — “Engagement is what’s relevant” to today’s shopping community. More than that, EMOTIONAL engagement is what binds people together. This is more about the feeling than the facts though the facts (benefits of shopping local) have to support the feeling or it will fade over a very short time.
Poor Piggly Wiggly; they are really in for the fight for survival. Walmart is pouring on the coals with its direct attack on Harris Teeter. Now Publix is going to wade in, using Walmart as muscle to put a nice beating on the remaining competitors. All the buzz words like employee owned, press releases, and cute jingles and songs will not be able to mask the fact that Walmart has very low prices and Publix is a cult of customer service fanatics. Three years from now, I wonder if we will be hearing “This campaign feels right.”
Generally speaking, yes, consumers are more concerned with where their food is coming from and there is some appeal in the idea of locally sourced foods and ingredients. The caveats are that the word “local” to some extent risks the overuse and misuse that words like “green” and “sustainable” got. Local is a relative term. Secondly, interest in local product sourcing varies pretty significantly by age. As one might imagine, it tends to be less important to young consumers. So, retailers need to be sure who they’re talking to with “locally sourced” propositions.
I also love this campaign but I agree with Ian — it ought to really be about community, not cash.
I wish them well with this campaign, but consumers are more driven to deals than ever before, and if they have to run over their own mothers to get that hot deal, so be it. David Livingston is right by acknowledging the reality out in the retail world today. Walmart will trounce most of your efforts, and the Dollar stores suck up the rest of your center-store growth, so as nostalgic as we may want to be, it is still going to be tough to gain extra sales without putting a ton of heat into the weekly ads.
Create the “BUZZ” around your perishables, and that is where the growth will come from, plus the profit dollars are there as well. It is the best way to make your mark in the business, and the beauty of it is, the Big Stores will never even bother to try to change their ways, which is good for all of us Independents out there.
Piggly Wiggly’s “Local Since Forever” campaign appears to hit all the right buy local notes. And it even goes a step beyond the typical buy local campaigns we hear from other grocers by broadening “local” to include local musicians, employees and others. Supporting the local community — in multiple ways — still resonates with many shoppers, especially in smaller communities and areas hard hit by the recession.
Some potential campaign additions: highlight the chain’s community initiatives, like for example, the chain’s support of any local non-profits. And, if possible, it would be nice to quantify and publicize the chain’s contributions to the local community via number of jobs, number of locally-sourced products, money funneled back to the community, etc.
“Local Since Forever” won’t forever crush the competition. But it should get a thumbs up from locals and help them rethink the local impact of their shopping dollars.
The Pig campaign is spot on for the customer mindset today of buy local. There is significant buzz around local grown today and consumers are resonding to it much more so than in the past.
Big Y has a similiar campaign in the Northeast.
I love it. They’re pointing out that they’re an authentic “local,” and always were, while their competitors are just using the term because it’s a buzzword. Love Ian’s ideas too. They could also highlight their employees to really draw a picture of how keeping money local is benefiting the local economy.
When I first heard their name many years ago, I couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image it conjured up of a ‘wiggly pig”. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate their tenacity as retailers.
I think consumers are sympathetic to this type of campaign IF you can show them some differentiation. When you really think about what holds back local purchasing in the food category, it is probably as attributable to the Frozen Food Department as it is to anything else. I’ve not been in a Piggly Wiggly lately, but I would believe they need a robust prepared foods section to really support local producers. By offering customers the same “easy meals” made from local purchases, they can encourage the sale of local products. Of course putting in a self-checkout lane is forbidden, that certainly doesn’t help the local economy.
I think consumers appreciate this type of campaign, but location and price point are still important.
My thought is that consumers are somewhat less receptive than in the past, but the reality is they probably never really were … at least not when the wallets actually came out. (And as a side note, I think a franchised operation of a national chain will have a particular lack of credibility, however local the ownership may actually be.)
It sounds like a fun campaign that will generate and build brand awareness. While local sourcing is important — as many have pointed out — local products still have to be affordable. As the primary grocery shopper for my household, I buy local when I can, but generally tend to stay with tried and true brands that have earned my loyalty. And I will shop those stores that give me what I want vs. those that try to make me buy what they want me to buy.
I like it. Seems like a good idea at a good time. And with their new store formats and value proposition, it is likely to work for them.