BRUNO'S ADS STRESS DIET RESOLUTIONS

BOB BAUER

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- While many supermarkets offer sales on frozen diet entrees and dinners during January, Bruno's here tipped the scales by using a full-page advertisement to call its customers to the table.

"Follow Through Your New Year's Resolution By Eating Right With Lean Cuisine" read the black-and-white advertisement, which offered eight Lean Cuisine entrees at two for $5 from Jan. 5 to 7.

In addition to pictures of the products, in-depth descriptions of the items were included. Chicken Carbonara, for example, was described as "Roasted chicken tenderloins in creamy parmesan cheese sauce with turkey bacon, mushrooms, basil and garlic. Served over a bed of linguini tossed with roasted red peppers."

Officials at Bruno's were unavailable for comment. However, two local market sources said the ad was in line with a promotional strategy often used by Bruno's.

"They've been doing things like this for about a year," said one of the observers. "They run full-page ads dealing with products from just one manufacturer. It seems to work pretty well because they continue to do it."

The other local source said the manufacturers benefit, as well as Bruno's.

"They've got about 18 or 20 stores in this market now, so that gives the manufacturers some pretty good bang for their buck. It's a good opportunity for those companies to get some good exposure at a chain that's doing well."

While neither source had specific data on the success of the promotion, one said he talked with a Bruno's executive who was pleased with the results.

"He told me sales were brisk," the source said. "But they expect that with this sort of item in January. Almost every supermarket tries to take advantage of people making diet and health resolutions, but not too many will devote a whole page to it. If they continue with this advertising game plan, I would expect to see them do something like this again next year."