Marketing Co-Op Forms Ad Agency

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Alliance Marketing, a cooperative retail marketing group serving about 200 independent supermarkets in the Southeast, has launched its own advertising agency, called Ad Solutions Group, based here, to serve members of the co-op as well as other retailers.

Alliance was formed by a group of independent operators who had been customers of wholesaler Fleming Cos. as a way to seek more promotional funds from suppliers, Lyman Black Jr., president of Ad Solutions and a former Fleming marketing executive, told SN. The retailers, which operate under several banners, including IGA, HG Hill Food Stores, Piggly Wiggly and others, are now served by Associated Wholesale Grocers, Kansas City, Kan.

Black said the agency will provide “anything a full-service ad agency does,” including print, broadcast and outdoor media management, Web-based services, in-store promotional materials and other services.

“The group had been buying these services on their own, and they decided to form an ad agency to serve their members,” he said.

Black began his career with Fleming in Nashville about 20 years ago, he said, but left when the company filed bankruptcy in 2003. The company was eventually broken up and absorbed by other wholesalers.