1426 Gross-ery

I almost never look at print ads anymore. At least the ones that get stuffed in my mailbox every Tuesday or Wednesday. And especially the one that gets thrown in my driveway. They are the physical version of spam and I just can’t get over my resentment at having them litter my mailbox and driveway long enough to even glance at them.
But the other day I did. Specifically the mailbox grocery ads. Each store had its own separate tab. And I noticed something interesting. Grocery stores for the most part are like Hollywood. Everyone is perfectly willing to save creative effort and copy everyone else.
Because the layouts are suspiciously consistent. Only the name of the store changes at the top. I’m no layout artist, but the tabs all seem to have the same top three themes.
First: “Lead with the meat.” All four grocery stores had meat ads above the fold. Bad move. Something about newsprint and color reproduction that leaves pictures of meat so appetizing. They put the gross in grocery.
Second: “Have a limited day sale.” 3-day sale, weekend sale, 4-day sale. Judging by the ads you may as well never come to the store on Tuesday.
And third: “Pitch a loss leader.” Some abnormally low price that makes you suspect they acquired the item in question under less than acceptable circumstances. High-jacked a frozen corn truck, or got eggs from factory farms near a nuclear waste facility.
In fairness, I imagine it’s hard to put together these tabs week after week. I wouldn’t want to be in the grocery ad business. What do you look forward to?
“Look Madge. I can’t wait till management puts them on sale. I just found a really good picture of a rutabaga!”
America, ya gotta love it.