an open letter to kroger

January 16, 2006

the following is an open letter to the owners of kroger, a grocery store chain.

dear kroger:

i write concerning your latest ad campaign. i know that one of the goals of your company is to keep kroger stores up to date and the way you are doing this is by remodeling older stores. great strategy. you also want people to know that the stores are being remodeled. no argument here, superb idea. however, i have a problem with the slogan you use to tell people about the new stores.

each morning, during good morning america, as i eagerly await the return of charlie and diane to my tv screen, a kroger commercial comes on announcing a savings celebration at all krogers in central tennessee to commemorate the opening of a newly remodeled store. a song begins to play in the background, “new store, real nice, that’s my kroger…new store, real nice”. then, the staff of the newly remodeled store comes on and in unison says “new store, real nice”. the commercial ends with the “new store, real nice” jingle.

this commercial is ruining my life, marriage and is making me crazy in general. first, it’s “new store, really nice”. clearly you don’t know the importance of the adverb. (see italicized words) “new store, quite nice”, “new store, very nice”. those work. “new store, real nice” doesn’t. i feel as though i must speak in thick southern accent when i say “new store, real nice”. second, my husband now responds to any inquiry about kroger with the phrase “new store, real nice” in a thick southern accent. for example: “oh, the eggs are over on the other side of the store now”. “duh, new store, real nice, crystal”. frankly (that’s another adverb), i don’t want to hear this phrase again, it makes me want to shop at harris teeter or even worse publix (although italicized, publix is not an adverb).

so i would like to request that you rethink your ad strategy on this one, kroger. bad grammar doesn’t sell.

crystal

3 Comments »

  1. I’d like to think that the marketing folks at Kroger (or the ad company they hired) are going for the same thing Apple did when they lauched the “Think different.” campaign…but I don’t see the corporate grocery types being that clever, nor does it make sense given the market to whom they are advertising.

    Also…depending on how one defines the parts of speech in the “Think different” phrase, it can be legal, grammatically speaking. Unfortunately for Kroger, the same rule does not apply to “New store, real nice.”

    Comment by Dovie — January 17, 2006 @ 7:13 am

  2. I love Publix. Harris Teeter is a close second. Kroger sucks.

    Comment by Shannon — January 20, 2006 @ 5:13 pm

  3. You’re an engaging writer, Crystal. I think you should send a copy of your post to the big-wigs at Kroger. I’m often irritated by the way advertisers seem to aim for the lowest possible level of appeal, or flaunt the fact that they believe the public to be ignorant. Like the current Fem-Con ad, in which a woman has to have a chewable birth control pill, so she can take it at whatever public place she happens to be at 9:00 AM. What would be the harm in just educating women to take care of their birth control in the privacy of their homes, before they get involved in whatever they may be doing at 9:00 AM? The idea that any woman without enough intelligence to figure that out is actually participating in, er, ‘activities’ that could lead to procreation drives me crazy! Even BC pills aren’t 100% effective, after all.

    Please forgive a stranger passing through and going off on a bit of a tangent, but I thought you might enjoy knowing you’re not alone in your irritation with ads. BTW, in AZ, Kroger calls their markets “Smith’s Food and Drug,” so we’re spared the TV ad that so annoys you. I personally can only afford to buy sale items at Smith’s, and feel lucky to have a WalMart Super Center for most of my grocery needs. I rather wish the Kroger folks would forget remodeling and TV ads, and just lower their prices.

    If you don’t already know of it, you might enjoy this website:

    http://www.write101.com/

    You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter from Jennifer Stewart, whose love for grammar might just warm your heart.

    Comment by bbinaz — June 2, 2007 @ 5:06 pm

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