SAINTS PRESERVE US

That’s a Wrap

Weekly grocery flyers have been a home economics staple ever since your mother can remember – though she was born a long, long time ago. Save-On-Foods, a western Canadian grocer with more than 175 locations, last week announced it was stopping production of its printed flyer starting July 14. So, the stop starts now.

The SAVERS’ SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! comprised an entire wraparound enveloping the chain’s final, standard flyer. A “wrap” is always trimmed to a different size to better stand out; emphasize the special nature and importance of its message – think Valentine roses, Easter hams and Christmas turkeys. Its primary graphic featured Save-On’s mascot, its president Darrell Jones. Branding a company with the face of an executive is fraught. Loblaw nailed it with Dave Nichol’s suite of President’s Choice house brands. Lee Iacocca forever remains the face of Chrysler. I can’t remember the name of the guy who loved Remington electric shavers so much he bought the company. I hope Sleep Country Canada’s Christine Magee dies in her sleep. Darrell presents as a stout, folksy figure. He loves Dad jokes (“Lick up frozen treats at this price!”), groceries (guessing big boned or five squares a day), but Darrell loves savings most of all (Darrell looks out for me and my family)! His wrap portrait shows “a low-tech guy” like him attempting to navigate a cell phone’s touch screen. The corners of his moustache are reaching for his earlobes; this new-fangled stuff is fun!

Darrell says the environmental impact of his decision is a no-brainer, eight million annual pounds of flyers now out of circulation, no longer tossed into blue bins or blue bags. Paper is deceptively sold by weight. If I have a ton of flyer-grade paper, barely opaque, and you have a ton of thicker archival quality paper, sheets suitable for books or prints, I’ve got way more paper. All paper comes with a grain which holds it together and dictates how a sheet best folds – always with, never against. All flyers are now delivered with the triple arrow recycled content logo. That symbol is something of a feel-good con. De-inking and re-pulping used paper requires a lot of chemicals and extra energy. The resulting hybrid sheet isn’t as white and the grain is shorter which affects its performance on press. Should you factor in everything involved in the process from tree to DARRELL’S DEALS for a Save-On customer, a virgin sheet is actually more economical, more environmentally friendly and, naturally, more attractive. To Darrell’s point, the only sustainable way to produce a physical flyer is not to.

I got my start in advertising more than 30 years ago with Canada Safeway, another western Canadian grocer. We printed 1.2 million flyers per week to promote 110 stores (both of those numbers are fuzzy now, but the ratio, which included overruns for spoilage or what have you, is about right). Three flyers were always in various stages of production each week: one in layout, the second being finessed and finalized and the third readied for press. I looked after the photography and copywriting (“Pork Butt Whole” and “Master Bakers” – hey, that was me).

To this day I’m relieved that distribution wasn’t part of my remit. Safeway flyers were inserted into all the major dailies and they were the lifeblood of small town weeklies where budding journalists learned their trade – just as I was with advertising. Secondary distribution utilized a subsidiary company of a newspaper conglomerate which competed directly with Canada Post for unaddressed admail home delivery. Those were different times. Back then I suppose, across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there was perhaps a single renegade NO FLYERS PLEASE sticker in existence, probably on a mailbox somewhere on Vancouver Island. If some penny-pinching soul didn’t receive their flyer on time they’d telephone SAFEWAY toll free (“Call us by name!” – that was me too).

We fretted about the Christmas – New Year’s flyer because its prices were in effect for two weeks, seven days beyond its best before date. But we’d hit the market again with our annual WHITE SALE - ultimately I stopped wondering how our competitors always seemed to know what we were up to – still, no flyer at all would’ve been commercial suicide; the very suggestion career suicide (which I managed rather eloquently anyway, informing a portly senior vice president in 1995 amongst a roomful of executives that the Beatles had broken up, I mean, c’mon, even his mother knew – never did learn to shut my mouth), macabre heresy in our weekly marketing meetings.

Economic news of late has been grim. Bear market with me. Inflation is “raging,” “soaring” or possibly “surging.” Margins in the grocery business have always run pretty close to the T-bone. Whilst working for The Great A&P in the seventies I was taught that one dented tin in a case negated the profit therein. If you shop the perimeter of your grocery store as I tend to, you’ve encountered stagflation: five wieners in a package, four instead of six scones from the master bakers and last fall’s crop of apples is too expensive for a teacher’s pet to present and too mealy to keep the doctor away.

Darrell’s digital decision is a gutsy move even as his wrap suggests 3 EASY WAYS to view the same great Save-On-Foods flyer. DOWNLOAD OUR APP. Still, his green spin is not wrong. Newspaper circulation and readership is down for the count. Many smaller centres are no longer served by local papers. Junk mail is viewed as a wasteful intrusion. And the people who lived and died with their weekly grocery flyers are dead – or in assisted living – they don’t matter anymore. The rest of us have meanwhile churned into a wired world without wires.

Freed of flyer production and distribution costs, Darrell promises even more savings for loyal Save-On shoppers. Apparently these newly unallocated monies will trickle down to store level somehow. Traditional grocery retailers have always exhibited a sort of “Simon Says” behaviour, a hive mentality. Every banner is pleased to offer its customers a loyalty program but beware the math when redeeming points for free or discounted goods. Every banner’s house brand is guaranteed premium quality while national brands pay grocers for premium shelf positioning. Every banner is okay with fixing the price of bread. Every banner has no compunction short-paying vendor invoices, shaving a couple of percentage points in the guise of handling fees. Every banner encourages customers to pack their own bags while nickel-and-diming them for the privilege.

Essentially, Darrell has granted his rivals tacit permission to amend the industry’s prime directive. And they will. It’s a brave new world and slightly greener at that – whatever the motive. 

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source marketing insights since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com to download your less expensive preferred paperless format.