Target Market of Grocery Stores, Publix and Kroger

Publix and Kroger are two experienced and strong companies in the retail industry. Both were founded in the US and are among the largest retailers in the country. Each of them has its place among other remarkably popular grocery stores. Publix and Kroger are perfect place for people looking for an extensive variety of products from different categories. These companies give big importance to customers. Thus, they want to ensure not only satisfaction with the purchase but a great experience and emotional connection as well. So, let’s dive deeper into the profiles of these companies and focus on their target market choices.   

Overall target market analysis of Grocery Stores

The global retail market for food and grocery has been steadily growing for the past few years and continues to grow. The global economy has been relatively strong and growing most of the time. This has led to more disposable income that people can spend. At the same time, the number of consumers from the middle class has been growing as well, which is also beneficial for the retail industry.

Nowadays, consumers are becoming more conscious about brands which also drives the retail market for food and grocery. The tendencies and ways of doing things are also changing in this industry.

The companies in the industry need to adapt to the changes and updates in the environment to be able to maintain and strengthen their place in the market. For example, nowadays many customers prefer to shop online, and if the store doesn’t provide this opportunity it gets left out of the competition.

Beginning with Publix, let’s go through a campaign by the brand and discuss marketing strategies the company implements.

Publix uses different tactics and ways to market and promote its product. The company puts its focus on the customers, their needs, preferences, etc. when choosing marketing strategies. Publix tries to create an emotional connection with the customers, give them a sense of belonging, and make the process of shopping desirable.

The company is remarkably famous for its emotional, touching, and engaging commercials. The company creates such commercials in connection with different holidays during the year. Very often this is done in a form of campaigns.  

Here is a video introducing the “The Surprise” Christmas campaign by Publix.

Every year, on Christmas eve Publix presents a video to celebrate Christmas and New Year with its customers. These commercials come under the campaign called “The Surprise”. The campaign aims to bring the Christmas magic to the lives of the customers and brighten up the holiday season for them more. These videos present heart-warming stories that can happen in every neighborhood, in every family, etc. At the same time, they come to link the Publix with the festive season, with Christmas magic, and warmness connected to it.

This video from “The Surprise” campaign is very heart-warming, emotional, and engaging. It presents a little story from a neighborhood. The focus of the company is a little boy who has a big and united family that came together to celebrate Christmas together.

They seem happy and excited about celebrating this special day together and are actively engaged in the preparations for the evening festivities. Meanwhile, an old lady from their neighborhood is left by herself to celebrate this day.

The little boy leaves an invitation for the old lady to join his family to celebrate Christmas. There are not any direct links to Publix throughout the video.

The video was created by the company not to directly promote the company or any products presented in its stores. Instead, the company creates an emotional connection with its customers. Also, Publix highlights the importance of family, interpersonal relations, and emotions through this campaign.

Now, let’s understand what communication strategy Publix uses through discussing its slogan.

From the beginning, Publix was created as a chain of stores that will offer outstanding service and have the best employees. Throughout time, satisfied customers were describing their experience in the Publix store by describing those stores as a pleasant place to do shopping. So clearly the slogan was based on the feedback of the customers about Publix. This slogan was introduced in 1954.

“Where shopping is a pleasure.”

At the end of every commercial by Publix, the viewer can hear and read the slogan of the company. The slogan is very well known and easily recognizable by many. It is short, precise, and easy to memorize.

The slogan perfectly sums up all the emotions that the customers have when shopping from a Publix store. The company transfers its confidence in the experience that it will provide to the customers in its stores through the slogan. Also, the slogan provokes positive associations with the name of the brand and creates an emotional connection between the company and its customers.

Let’s reveal the target market of Publix.

To do so let’s analyze the following commercial of the company.

The video is emotional, heart-warming, and beautiful like most of the commercials of Publix. The commercial depicts a family that is getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving together. There is a pleasant buzz in the house, everybody is participating in the process of cooking and making up the table. There are many characters in the video. All of them are quite different from each other by their age, gender, occupation, interests, preferences, etc. Despite all these, they gathered to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner together.

They seem to enjoy the overall preparation process. The bond between these family members is very strong and warm. They give big importance to the role of the family in their lives and choose to spend this important day with each other.

The main focus of the commercial is the bond between the woman and his son in the commercial. First, the mother thinks that his son got estranged from the family, but after all, it turns out to be false. All the discussed details show that Publix focuses on the Sharers segment.

Who are Sharers?

Lifestyle and Values: 

People belonging to the Sharers target segment are adventurous, enjoy challenges, taking risks, and experiencing new emotions. These people seek pleasure and enjoyment from everything they are doing, even if it is not interesting or exciting for them. Sharers are quite responsible when it comes to life duties. They take care of their home, parents, and family. These people want to create a warm, comfy, cozy, and nice atmosphere at home where they can spend a lot of time with family and friends.

Health and appearance have huge importance for the representatives of this segment. Sharers want to make sure that their family stays fit and eats healthy. Magazines, movies, and ads influence the daily routine of these people.

They enjoy making changes and ad variety into their lives. Besides, Sharers consider financial stability and a good career crucially important. These people like light activities that are entertaining. They love gardening and get fulfillment from visiting cafes, theaters, etc.

Attitude to Shopping: 

Sharers love shopping and get a sense of fulfillment from the process. Despite this, they are good with their money as these people realize their budget limits. However, Sharers will splurge on desirable products without paying attention to their quality or price. People belonging to this target usually are knowledgeable about new brands, products, and trends in the market.

In general, Sharers like trying and adopting novelties of the market. These people tend to switch between brands out of their curiosity and love trying new brands whenever possible. They purchase high-end products whenever they can afford them and use these types of purchases to stand out.

Some interesting facts about Sharers

• They are not fond of computers or technology in general. These people don’t consider using the internet advantage and thus don’t use it much.
• Interestingly, Sharers don’t like traveling. They don’t like taking short trips or escaping somewhere else for holiday.
• TV is an inseparable part of Sharers’ lives. TV and media, in general, are a way for them to compensate for their limitations and escape from ordinary life. Besides, they like reading magazines on fashion, celebrities, and entertainment.

16 Personalities (Which one is for your business?)

Earning a strong customer base is one thing, knowing your customers, maintaining them and establishing strong customer relationships is another. Publix and Kroger succeeded in reaching wide coverage by knowing their customers, as they target the Sharers segment.

Sharers find enjoyment in every moment in life, even in everyday tasks and small events. This also explains their love of shopping and visiting shopping centers with great pleasure.

Career growth is equally important to money, but money is the primary measure of being successful. 

Targeting Sharers has helped Kroger and Publix accurately design their marketing strategy to fit the preferences of their ideal customer. Buyer personas played a crucial role in providing products with superior value.

For getting more on buyer personas and their characteristics, check out our book 16 Personalities, where we included the wide spectrum of customer segments. Your journey to perfect marketing strategy starts today!

Let’s move on to Kroger and get an insight into the marketing strategy of the company by analyzing one of its campaigns.

There are various methods used by Kroger to promote and market its stores and improve the brand image. The company puts much effort into its commercials to empower customers as well as inform them about its values. Very often the commercials of the company come to not only promote the brand but also speak up about different initiatives, motivate employees, etc.

This retailer very often uses the campaign to promote, market its products, and update customers about novelties of the company. Kroger is one of those companies that improve the profile of the company by keeping up with time.

The following video is from the debut campaign of Kroger. Let’s watch and discuss it.

The video is animated, funny, and engaging. The animated characters are remarkably different from each other. The characters differ with their age, gender, occupation, need, etc. Everyone watching this commercial can probably find a character that can be associated with him/her. This makes the commercial inclusive, makes it a store chain for everyone, and already speaks about the values of Kroger.

This commercial was something unlike any other one presented by the company before. Kroger made huge changes to its overall image and decided to present the updated Kroger through a debut campaign. The changes were made to the logo, slogan, etc. With this campaign, the company came to announce a new chapter for itself.

The usage of animated characters was a strong move by the company to differentiate itself from the mainstream competitive companies. The company even named the type of animated characters used as “Kroji” (a combination of Kroger and emoji), which is another funny and memorable association with the brand.

Continuing with the communication strategy of Kroger, let’s discuss the slogan of the company.

In recent years, Kroger has made a big modernization to the brand. The company presented an updated logo and a new slogan. Kroger made these changes to emphasize its egalitarian American values and identity. After the update, the slogan of the company is the following:

 “Fresh for Everyone”

The slogan is short, simple, and precise. It is not wordy and is very easy to memorize. The slogan is remarkably inclusive and clear, which makes more people associate it with themselves. This tagline is created in a way to attract the attention of any person reading it. Every person despite his/her income level, profession, preferences, etc. wants to buy goods when that is fresh. Thus Kroger’s slogan is an excellent attention grabber.

With this slogan, the company emphasizes what makes it unique and what it has chosen as the most important attribute for itself. The slogan perfectly transfers the egalitarian standpoint of Kroger and makes it a favorable brand by many.  

It’s time to discuss the target market of Kroger.

To easily identify the target market of the company, let’s analyze the following commercial by Kroger.

This commercial is touching, empowering, and inspiring. Unlike many other commercials in the market, it focuses not on the commercial, but the employees of the company. Very often people forget whose effort is behind the services and experiences they receive. Kroger comes to remind the viewer of the importance of the employees for every company. The commercial addresses the most actual issue existing in the world – COVID-19.

The video shows, that despite the risks and difficulties of our time, their employees continue to work and help customers get needed goods. All the employees depicted in the commercial remind that they are also average people earning to provide for themselves and their family. These people seem caring and choose to do what is right and needed. They have an average job and a mainstream lifestyle.

All these employees interestingly resemble the people who may also purchase from Kroger. The details discussed indicate that Kroger tries to attract customers belonging to the Floaters segment.

Who are Floaters?

Lifestyle and Values: 

People belonging to the Floaters target segment are home and family-oriented. They consider their duty to raise their children properly and take good care of their family. They do everything to ensure a warm, friendly, and united atmosphere at home. They care more about their close ones than about themselves and get all the best for the family even having a low budget.

Floaters highly value traditional rules and values. They won’t do anything just for enjoyment, but rather for it is right. These people give big importance to security and stability. Thus, they don’t go after new opportunities. Floaters don’t work for a career, but money and having a job. These people don’t like to be responsible for tasks but would prefer to be told what to do. Those from this segment would always choose peaceful and calm evenings over dynamic city nights.

Attitude to Shopping: 

Representatives of Floaters’ target segment are usually bargain hunters despite enjoying the process of doing shopping. These people search for exclusive offers, discounts, low prices, and other similar promotions. They very often give preference to items that are not expensive and choose down-market brands. Buy buying inexpensive items they get the opportunity to purchase bigger quantities. This is logical, as they often choose quantity over quality. Floaters are dedicated to brands that they get used to. When they like a brand they hardly change it and stay loyal.

Some interesting facts about Floaters

• These people often stay away from the latest technologies as they are not good at them. This results in not using the Internet.
• The kitchen is the most favorite and the most used place in the house of Floaters. They enjoy anything connected with housekeeping and love cooking for their family.
• Floaters watch TV to get information that they need and search for. These people mainly watch political discussions, news, comedy shows, talk show, etc.  

Summing up, Publix and Kroger are good examples of strong and popular companies that remain compatible in a fast changing market. Through self-improvement and careful adjustments, these two will successfully conquer new heights and become stronger. Thanks to effective strategies both Publix and Kroger managed to get to the point where they are now.

These two understand how crucial the customer for their success is, and they put much effort into retaining and enlarging their customer base. That’s all for Publix and Kroger and their strategies. Check out the main page of our website for more posts like this.

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