Landscape

With razor thin profit margins, stiff competition from big box behemoths like Target and Walmart, and a new post-recessionary consumer mindset, Bloom Grocery was beginning to lose market share. And given the highly commoditized nature of the retail grocery industry, our client needed a strategy to win back lapsed shoppers while enticing new ones.

Insight

Through focus groups, store intercepts, and qualitative research methods, we collected insights from current, lapsed, and non-Bloom shoppers. After parsing the data, we identified a viable white space in the market for a grocer that could deliver lower prices on items important to today’s grocery shoppers: natural, organic, and local products; fresh meats and seafood; and a wider range of both everyday and specialty items.

Thinking

Bloom needed to freshen up its brand – literally. So we worked alongside merchandisers, category managers, and suppliers to devise an integrated, cross-departmental marketing plan that could deliver the right product mix, generate some serious buzz, and get shoppers in the door to sample the improved Bloom experience.

Beginning at the shelf, Bloom added thousands of carefully cultivated new SKUs. From there we developed a colorful system of category icons to amplify the new items and dramatically refreshed the décor and wayfinding throughout the store. Other tactics used to build awareness and activate shoppers included advertising, OOH, direct mail, radio, and even a custom food truck.

Results

In the weeks following the launch, our efforts helped Bloom achieve double digit same store sales growth in Bloom’s southern Virginia and Washington DC markets. To date, this positive lift continues, and the banner is enjoying a larger basket size and more frequent trips from its top shoppers.