Aldi thinks outside the billboard with its new campaign

As more shoppers are trading down due to high food prices, no-frills German discount grocery chain Aldi is also sizing down its billboards.

As part of its new brand campaign, the Batavia, Illinois-based retailer is using miniature interactive billboards in high traffic areas of Atlanta, Dallas and Minneapolis to highlight the grocer’s discount grocery prices, Aldi said this month.

Local residents in those metropolitan areas are invited to search for the tiny billboards, scanning a QR code and entering to win free groceries for a year. Shoppers not in those areas are able to participate as well, Aldi said, by downloading their own tiny billboard from ALDI.us.

“We know inflation is hitting everyone so we’re continuing to position ourselves as a solution when it comes to grocery shopping during these difficult times,” Kate Kirkpatrick, director of communications at Aldi USA, told WGB. This campaign will further amplify what our current customers already know: Aldi provides customers with the lowest possible prices on all their favorite products. In fact, we’ve already seen over 1 million new shoppers try out Aldi in the past year, so we know we’re on the right track. Furthermore, this campaign provides a more visual aspect of the tiny prices (and huge savings) our customers can expect when they shop at our stores.”

The hunt for the wee billboards is a change in traditional billboard campaigns. “Everything about Aldi  is unique, and the things that make us unique are what our shoppers love about us most. We intentionally break from convention to save our customers time and money so they can focus on what really matters,” Kirkpatrick said. “Our new ‘It’s an ALDI Thing’ tag line further highlights the unique things we do, from our quarter cart rental system, our smaller format stores and our carefully curated selection of products, to offer better choices for shoppers. These differences make us stand out from conventional grocers.”

Aldi will open its first store in LaPlace, Louisiana, on Thursday. The new store will be located at 1910 W. Airline Hwy., edging Aldi closer to its goal of becoming the third-largest U.S. grocery retailer by store count by the end of 2022, the discount grocer said. Aldi currently has 2,200 stores across 38 states.