Retailer's new brand message is 'Fresh for Everyone'

CINCINNATI — Kroger Co. is seeking to emphasize its grocery heritage and its food bona fides with a new logo and a marketing campaign built around the slogan “Fresh for Everyone.”

“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,” Kroger executive vice president and chief operating officer Mike Donnelly said in a statement on Wednesday. “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.”

The rebranding effort is the product of Kroger’s work with DDB New York, which the retailer named as its first creative agency of record in July.

“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,” DDB New York co-chief creative officer Lisa Topol said. “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.”

As part of the brand transformation campaign, Kroger has introduced a revamped logo which is more contemporary in appearance while still retaining design features from the company’s classic version, including the color. The “Fresh for Everyone” tagline is meant to emphasize that Kroger is an egalitarian brand offering fresh, affordable and delicious food for everyone.

“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,” Kroger vice president of marketing Mandy Rassi said. “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 day, 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.”

The campaign’s effort to delivery a “contemporary evolution” of Kroger’s brand and image includes an animated video with “Kroji” (Kroger + emoji) characters designed to represent the retailer’s “customers, associates and communities in an inclusive, optimistic and fun way.”