Lidl launches new advertising campaign on pricing

Arlington, Va.-based Lidl U.S. has launched a new advertising campaign, titled “Don’t Let Them Waste Your Money.” The series of multiplatform ads, which will run in six states, caricatures what Lidl calls the broken and bloated supermarket shopping experience many Americans face and highlights the deep discounter’s lower prices, according to a press release.

Lidl, which offers a 90 percent assortment of private brands, is teaming with The Martin Agency on the ads, which come shortly after a study from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler School of Business found that Lidl prices can be up to 50 percent lower than nearby retailers.

“This new campaign is designed to raise awareness about the costly inefficiencies of traditional supermarkets and the savings that Lidl’s streamlined approach brings to customers every day,” said Elina Elvholm, director of brand marketing at Lidl U.S., in the press release. “When customers shop at Lidl, they experience less complexity, lower prices and better quality choices.”

The “Don’t Let Them Waste Your Money” series of new ads introduces the The Vanhills, a fictional family that owns a large chain of supermarkets. The Vanhills are consumed with using supermarket tricks to con customers into paying more for inferior products and inefficient practices.

The first TV ad, titled “Apple Pyramid,” (link) features a group of executives from Vanhill’s Inc. standing around an employee as he erects an enormous apple pyramid. When one of the family executives questions the value in this practice, his mother, the CEO of Vanhill’s Inc., reprimands him, and says they have to make the apples look fresh somehow. She then muses aloud about the alternative of actually carrying fresh apples, pauses to let the idea sink in and then everyone erupts in laughter.

Lidl will release several additional TV ads featuring the Vanhills over the coming weeks.

“When you get a chance to work with a brand as fearless and competitive as Lidl, you have to deliver work the category won’t see coming,” said David Muhlenfeld, vice president and creative director for The Martin Agency, in the press release. “So we went semi-ballistic and took a cheerful hammer to fruit pyramids and all the other tricks traditional groceries use to make you pay more than you should.”

Lidl U.S. operates 50 stores in the U.S.