Most advertising campaigns are designed to
put a company's best foot forward in as clear and precise a manner as
possible. In a quaint switch on that policy, these days the Great
Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. is offering a blend of self-abasement
and mystification. Last week, A. & P. introduced the public to two
men whose white aprons proclaim them to be Price and Pride. Price—hair
parted down the middle, wire-rimmed glasses, collar pin—looks like a
study in fiscal conservatism; Pride, bow-tied and portly, looks
expansive. In print and on TV they humbly admit that the supermarket
chain let them get separated , but now
they are working together again.What is that supposed to mean? Officials of A. & P. and
McCann-Erickson Inc., which created the campaign, admit that they have
trouble putting the idea into more explicit words. But if stated
bluntly, the message might go something like this: A. & P.'s
three-year WEO drive was a
disastrous blunder. The chain went all out to undercut competitors'
prices at the expense of quality; brand-name goods became scarce on the
shelves, and many stores were allowed to become dirty. Result:
customers abandoned A. & P. in droves for rival chains.Now A. & P. intends to emphasize quality and spruce up the stores.Long Slide. Will the consumer get that message? Much of Madison Avenue
doubts it. William Bernbach, chairman of Doyle Dane Bernbach, says that
the ads so far are “essay-type things on abstractions.”
Gerald Shapiro, president of the Carl Ally agency, says simply, “I
don't know what Pride means.” Charles Moss, president of Wells,
Rich, Greene, believes “they [A. & P.] are just
talking to themselves.” He is right. McCann-Erickson Associate
Creative Director Charles Ryant says the early ads were aimed largely
at “energizing” A. & P.'s own employees, though later ones will stress
the quality of A. & P. goods.But if the ads so far convey no clear impression of what A. & P. is up
to, the corporate story behind them is one of change and promise.
Hamstrung for years by an inbred corporate structure, the company had
been sliding long before ill-fated WHO. Its share of national food
sales has dropped from 8.5% in 1965 to 5.8% now, which means that A. &
P. has yielded its No. 1 sales position to California-based Safeway. A.
& P. had too many stores; many were small and unprofitable, but until
recently management did not have the nerve to lop them off. In
December, however, Jonathan Scott, 45-year-old head of the Idaho-based
Albertson's Inc. chain, was signed on as A. & P.'s first chief
executive from the outside, and he has been making the old firm's bones
rattle.
