• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, March 27, 2012

Regional grocery chain Piggly Wiggly is proclaiming itself “Local Since Forever” in its first new brand campaign in six years. 

The Charleston, S.C.-based chain is using a two-minute spot to kick off the new positioning, spokesperson Christopher Ibsen tells Marketing Daily. It plays off the area’s special beauty, as well as the chain’s 65-year history of local ownership. “It taps into this deep sense of pride and commitment to what we’re trying to accomplish,” he says. “Besides plenty of imagery of the Carolinas and coastal Georgia, there are familiar images of our stores, and the commitment to local communities, whether that’s sponsoring church picnics, Little League games or parade floats.”

The two-minute spot break will break on all four local network stations, leading into the NCAA’s Final Four Men’s Basketball Championships on April 2, and will continue to run for several weeks, before switching to shorter versions of the ad. “There will be no escaping it,” he says. And the new theme will also appear in radio ads, billboards, newspaper circulars, store signage and collateral, social media spaces -- and later this year, on the company’s new Web site.

The positioning stemmed, in part, from the 100-store chain’s long commitment to local gastronomy, which it began touting more prominently this year. Pig Swig, for example, its private-label beer -- which includes Pig Tail Ale and Pig Pen Pilsner -- was launched nine months ago, and has significantly exceeded all forecasts, he explains. And at about the same time, it began running weekly “The pig makes local happen” ads in papers, each focusing on a local product and the people behind it, from simmering sauces to local frozen biscuits and area cheeses.  

Ibsen says the time seemed right for the new campaign, because as customers settle into the new realities of continued high food and gas prices, “the shopping trip to the local supercenter doesn’t offer the value many shoppers thought it might. Our studies have shown a great deal of self-loathing that comes from shopping at supercenters, including longer drives, walking across immense parking lots and through enormous stores. We offer a more consistent value in terms of pricing, as well as the satisfaction of shopping at an employee-owned store, which our customers say makes a big difference to them.”

The positioning also taps into an ongoing effort from the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, encouraging people to become Palmettovores, eating South Carolina-certified products.