Marketing Communications Management at ALDI Group Case Study

Marketing Communications Management at ALDI Group - Case Study Example ALDI had a long-standing reputation of being a cheap discounted chain and often in West Germany, before about 1990, ALDI shops were often ridiculed as being cheap shops selling poor-quality goods. ALDI's customers were alleged to be only poor people who couldn't afford to shop elsewhere. ALDI also had a hard marketing strategy in that it refused to sell branded products and stuck to its private label products claiming that it helped to cut prices. Although ALDI is very popular in its own target segment, the company decided that a complete revamp was needed. The 500 million pound budget was aimed at improving the existing stores and building new ones. The image of the store was to be upgraded to target middle Britain while carrying specialty products was aimed to bring in upmarket customers and retaining them. Above all the image upgrade was aimed at encroaching into the market shares of its close competitors Tesco and Sainsbury. The ultimate aim was to have 217 more stores by the year 2010, totaling about 500 in the U.K alone. ALDI's strategy for marketing consisted of a TV campaign helped along by an outdoor poster activity and newspaper advertising. The common thread that binds them together is the catchphrase," Spend a little, live a lot". ALDI which embarked on this campaign had never undertaken any kind of PR activity during its past years of existence. The hard discount concept is all about keeping expenses to a minimum so the stores can undercut the main supermarkets on their limited ranges of 650 to 1 200 products, depending on the operator. ALDI's website tries to push the quality angle. It talks about quality products and wide choice "that combine with prices that never fail to astonish first-time shoppers [...] our stringent selection process enables us to offer our customers own- brand products whose quality matches that of leading brands." ALDI has also has entertained the media at one its store openings and tried to improve its visibility in the eyes of the general public through the publicity. In the US, it has used weekly inserts in the newspapers to garner public attention.