CINCINNATI and NEW YORK and PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) debuted its new logo and brand transformation campaign, celebrating its love of all customers and associates, food-first culture and long history as America’s favorite grocer.
“Kroger’s new brand launch is a unifying framework for our seamless shopping experience that is designed to deepen our connection with customers and associates today and into the future, support our business transformation and provide an elevated creative approach,” said Mike Donnelly, Kroger’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Kroger chose Fresh for Everyone as our leading brand message because it is inclusive, clear and memorable and supports our vision of serving America through food inspiration and uplift.
“Kroger believes that everyone deserves to have access to fresh, affordable and delicious food, no matter who you are, how you shop or what you like to eat. Kroger’s winning combination of assets puts our team in a unique position to deliver fresh…for everyone.”
In July, Kroger announced DDB New York as its first creative agency of record. Kroger’s rich food history, passion for serving its customers and modern data and technology, combined with DDB’s ingenuity and creative horsepower, have helped the iconic retail brand create a refreshed, stronger brand identity – both internally among associates and externally among customers and other valuable stakeholders – that breaks through the grocery retail industry’s ‘sea of sameness.’
New Kroger Brand Attributes
- Logo – A contemporary evolution
The contemporary evolution of the redesigned Kroger logo reflects the company’s strong, food-rich heritage by retaining the shape and movement of the iconic “K” and “G” loved by generations of Kroger customers. - Tagline – Kroger’s uniquely egalitarian American brand
Fresh for Everyone is Kroger’s brand ethos. The universal tagline is simple and designed to drive an instant understanding of the uniquely egalitarian American brand, underscored by Kroger’s commitment and belief that everyone should have access to fresh, affordable and delicious food. - Primary Brand Color – Blue signals Kroger heritage, safety and trust
Blue has been and will continue to be Kroger’s signature color. Blue represents the Kroger brand heritage of food savvy and signals safety and trust to customers. - Color Accent Palette – Bright and modern, and signifies fun and inclusion
The Kroger brand features a bright and modern palette of accent colors reflective of the fun and inclusive spirit of the campaign. - Animation – Lovable “Kroji” characters keeps Kroger fun and relatable
Animation is Kroger’s fresh creative medium to market, connect and differentiate. The Kroji (Kroger + emoji) animation features a loveable cast of characters to represent Kroger customers, associates and communities in an inclusive, relatable, optimistic and fun way. - Photography and Video Style – Kroger food stands out in the grocery industry’s ‘sea of sameness’
Real, delicious, fresh food with movement placed next to animation inspire Kroger’s new photography and video productions,breaking out of the ‘sea of sameness’ and creating an exciting visual narrative that pops and stands out. - Advertising Campaign – Dialing it up
Kroger is launching a mass media campaign to amplify its new brand transformation. Advertising channels include retail, television and radio broadcast, digital, print, social, podcast, cinema, outdoor, and TV and music streaming services. - Thoughtful Hosts – Living Kroger’s brand by providing exceptional customer experience
Kroger’s nearly half a million associates live its brand promise by helping make customers’ lives easier. No matter how someone shops, Kroger is committed to delivering fresh food at a fair price, simplifying customers’ shopping experiences and meaningfully giving back to its communities through Zero Hunger | Zero Waste, the brand’s bold social impact plan to end hunger in its communities and eliminate waste across the company by 2025. - Family of Companies – Same great banners, unified under Fresh for Everyone
Kroger’s 20+ retail banners across America will continue to operate under their existing names, incorporating the new brand attributes. - Making Life Easier – Kroger offers customers free grocery pickup this holiday season
To celebrate the launch of the brand transformation campaign, Kroger is offering customers free grocery Pickup – generally a $4.95 fee – through January 1, 2020, making life easier for customers throughout the holiday season. Grocery orders can be placed on kroger.com.
“Fresh and friendly underpin Kroger’s new brand identity because product quality and the total customer experience – across physical and digital – are key to bringing our brand promise to life,” says Mandy Rassi, Kroger’s vice president of marketing. “Kroger’s new brand celebrates our love of people and our love of food, cutting through the ‘sea of sameness’ that has beset grocery retail advertising for far too long. Having a more consistent and recognizable brand enables Kroger to stand out and engage our customers in an even more compelling way.
“We know that consumers make 221 food-related decisions a day1, so Kroger’s brand campaign was developed using the deep insights we have about our customers, their needs and how we can help make it easier for them to achieve their food aspirations.”
“Kroger already stands apart from its competitors in terms of quality, loyalty to customers and real-world actions that speak to its purpose to Feed the Human Spirit,” said Lisa Topol, Co-Chief Creative Officer of DDB New York. “Advertising in the grocery space was universally a sea of sameness: generic aisles of groceries and close-ups of people cutting carrots. Yet, Kroger is anything but generic. So, we wanted to take their inclusive and uplifting promise to their customers and find an effective and creative way to share it with the world.”
Brandweek Summit in Palm Springs, Calif.
Rassi will take the stage today at the Brandweek summit in Palm Springs, Calif., joining other brand leaders from across the country, to participate in a fireside chat with Adweek Senior Editor Doug Zanger about Creativity and Commerce: Strategies for Reenergizing a Legacy Retail Brand.
To learn more about the brand transformation, visit thekrogerco.com. To download the brand’s new logo and other campaign creative assets, visit here.
About Kroger
At The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), we are Fresh for Everyone™ and dedicated to our Purpose: To Feed the Human Spirit®. We are, across our family of companies, nearly half a million associates who serve over 11 million customers daily through a seamless shopping experience under a variety of banner names. We are committed to creating #ZeroHungerZeroWaste communities by 2025. To learn more about us, visit our newsroom and investor relations site.
About DDB
DDB Worldwide (www.ddb.com) is one of the world’s largest and most influential advertising and marketing networks. DDB has been named Agency of the Year numerous times by the Cannes International Festival of Creativity and the industry’s leading advertising publications and awards shows. In 2019 DDB Worldwide was named the Cannes Festival’s #2 Network of the year, and the Gunn Report has listed DDB as one of the Top 3 Global Networks for 12 of the last 15 years. The agency’s clients include Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Unilever, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Army, among others.
Founded in 1949, DDB is part of the Omnicom Group (NYSE) and consists of more than 200 offices in over 90 countries with its flagship office in New York, NY.
ABOUT OMNICOM
Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE – OMC) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.
