Kroger
Kroger is rebranding.
- Kroger is rebranding with the tagline "fresh for everyone" and launching a new marketing campaign featuring animated characters.
- "Anywhere a logo or a tagline shows up, it will get an update," Mandy Rassi, Kroger's vice president of marketing, told Business Insider.
- As part of the rebrand, the company is offering customers free grocery pickup - waiving a fee that typically costs about $4.99 - until January 1, 2020.
- In a recent memo, Kroger said it was planning to overhaul its brand because its "old approaches aren't working" and "customers don't know what to make of the Kroger brand."
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Kroger is getting a new look.
The supermarket chain, which is the largest in the US, on Tuesday unveiled a new logo and national marketing campaign featuring animated characters that it calls "Krojis," or Kroger emojis.
Kroger also announced a new tagline, "fresh for everyone," that it said is meant to highlight "Kroger's commitment and belief that everyone should have access to fresh, affordable and delicious food."
As part of the rebrand, the company is offering customers free grocery pickup - waiving a fee that typically costs about $4.99 - until January 1, 2020.
Kroger
Shoppers will start to notice the new branding in stores starting Wednesday.
Kroger is overhauling its brand as it faces heightened competition from rivals including Walmart, Amazon-owned Whole Foods, discount grocers Aldi and Lidl, and dollar stores. Walmart and Whole Foods are rapidly growing their online grocery services, while discount and dollar stores are driving down prices.
In a memo circulated internally last week, Kroger said it was planning to rebrand because its "old approaches aren't working," as Business Insider previously reported.
"It's been long proven that strong brands drive business," the memo stated. "But today, customers don't know what to make of the Kroger brand. We're trying to be everything to everyone - saying too many things in a fragmented way. And it shows. We're a Fortune #17 company that doesn't break the top 100 in brand value ranking."
New TV ads, shopping bags, and employee aprons
Kroger
Kroger employees will get new aprons.
As part of the overhaul, all of Kroger's more than 2,700 stores across its family of brands - including its namesake locations, Smith's, Fry's, Harris Teeter, Mariano's, and others - will incorporate aspects of the new branding, such as the "fresh for everyone" tagline and ads featuring the "Kroji" characters.
Stores will be getting new shopping bags and Kroger employees will receive new aprons. The Kroger website will be redesigned to feature the new branding, and the company will run a national
"Anywhere a logo or a tagline shows up, it will get an update," Mandy Rassi, Kroger's vice president of marketing, told Business Insider.
Shoppers will start to notice the new branding in stores starting Wednesday, but not all the planned changes will happen immediately.
"We are trying to be mindful of the investment," she said. Stores will sell through existing shopping bags, for example, before rolling out the updated bags.
Kroger
The company's new marketing materials will feature photos and videos of fresh food, in addition to the animated "Krojis." The aesthetic of these photos will veer away from the top-down style of food photography popularized on Instagram, Rassi said.
"If you imagine scrolling through your Instagram feed today... it's all these images of top-down, beautifully styled food," she said. "They all look beautiful, but they all look the same."
Kroger wants to "break through that sea of sameness and all the clutter that's out there so that customers can see it and get it and more clearly understand what we stand for," she said.
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