Aldi Shmaldi: Conviviality Retail’s Bargain Booze is playing German discounter at its own game
Last week it was teachers, this week it's rival retailers. Aldi has suddenly become the brand to beat.
Conviviality Retail – which runs Bargain Booze – has this week launched a head-to-head campaign with budget grocer Aldi, pitting its prices for big-label brands such as Carlsberg Export and Smirnoff against the supermarket's own label products.
As well as pictures of the products and prices, Bargain Booze's advert asks "who?" about the Aldi own brand product, under the headline “Aldi Shmaldi”.
It is being seen as a side-swipe against the German retail giant, whose own marketing works in the exact opposite way.
Shorecap's Clive Black said: “Whilst one swallow a summer doth not make, we believe that Bargain Booze's campaign is quite brilliant. Indeed, we would suggest that it has the potential to be one of the most novel and potent advertising and marketing initiatives that we have seen in an industry starved of creativity for many years.
“As such, a chink in Aldi's armour may have been opened up, which if the manufacturing industry and superstore groups latch onto in a detailed, creative, humorous and meaningful way, could pose Aldi & Lidl some problems.”
However this is not the first time Aldi has been held up as a measure.
Last week the national director of the Boarding School Association Robin Fletcher urged schools to “think of the four As – Apple, Amazon, Audi and Aldi”.
In a keynote speech he said the UK's boarding schools “are premium providers that rightly sell themselves on service and customer care, coupled with strong and enduring brand values” but added that “survival in the future will be about innovation and amazing service at a great price”.
He told The Telegraph: “Aldi have shown to the big supermarkets of the UK that you can come in and disrupt the market with a good service and product at a very good price. Maybe this is something the boarding schools can learn something from."