Creative Ads Drive Sales at Regional Independents

County Markets, Minneapolis, which opened a store in Champaign, Ill. — its first in a college town — and used text messages to communicate coupon promotions to students at the University of Illinois, resulting in a 25% redemption rate.

Hen House Markets, Kansas City, Mo., which ran print ads featuring certain produce items at 10 cents apiece and saw sales go up 17% the week of the ad and 6% over the next six weeks.

Riesbeck's, St. Clairsville, Ohio, which ran a multi-department promotion on orange-colored products, enabling it to sell 1,534 orange angel food cakes, 43,200 oranges and 5,800 units of orange juice.

D'Agostino Markets, Larchmont, N.Y., which slashed prices for one week and ran newspaper ads under the suggestive headline “Managers Gone Wild” (a takeoff on “Girls Gone Wild” videos) that resulted in a sales jump of 10%, a rise in customer counts of 12% and an increase of 16% in the number of customers enrolled in its reward cards program. The chain also ran radio ads for the first time in several years.

Andronico's, San Francisco, which ran an institutional ad promoting “a world of cheese” that resulted in a boost to cheese sales of 46%.

Karnes Neighborhood Market, the oldest independent in Santa Fe, N.M., which ran print ads designed to rebrand itself, leading to an increase of 8% in comparable-store sales.

Harvest Foods, Walla Walla, Wash., which distributed six coupons on door hangers as part of a program to reassure customers its prices were competitive with Wal-Mart's, resulting in a redemption rate of 5%.

Coborn's, Minneapolis, whose “Coborn's Cares” campaign in support of breast cancer awareness month raised $12,500 through the sale of special T-shirts, pink cookies and Pepsi, and whose “Feed Our Families” promotion to sell bags of groceries for donation to local food banks enabled it to contribute more than 100,000 pounds of food.

Niemann Foods, Quincy, Ill., which held a children's fair to boost awareness of healthier eating habits, resulting in a sales boost of 5% for the quarter and an increase in customer counts of 14%.

Harps Foods, Springdale, Ark., which held an event to raise money for a local animal shelter, resulting in sales moving from a negative 5% to a positive 15%.

Cub Foods, Minneapolis, which ran a promotion on Kellogg's cereals by building a 108-foot in-store display that generated $30,000 in sales at margins of 20% to 28%.