ALDI: WHO KNEW "EBANANA" SCROOGE WOULD BE SUCH A HIT

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Yes, you heard it right “Ebanana” Scrouge.

This may seem like a silly ad with silly characters.

But those silly characters are a big factor in Aldi taking over Christmas.

So, how did “Ebanana Scrouge” and the “Christmas Carrot” become the face of a billion-dollar global supermarket?

Company Overview

Valuation: Unknown - Private Company

2020 Revenue: $109 Billion (Source)

Aldi is the common brand of two German family-owned discount supermarket chains with over 10,000 stores in 20 countries.

Even though the company hits crazy revenue numbers, the company remains private - a very unique decision for a company of this size.

Breaking Down The Strategy

The months of November and December account for 19% of retail says per year on average. (Source)

Christmas time is by far the most vital time of the year for retail stores and supermarkets.

Just think about the quantity of food people are buying for Christmas, on top of the increased food consumption due to it being a holiday.

There is a huge amount of demand for the products that supermarkets have, which leaves all the supermarkets battling it out to supply that increased demand.

When it comes to Christmas ad’s in the UK, John Lewis has always been THE brand over the last 5 years. The John Lewis Christmas ad has almost become a national phenomenon as people rush to see it when it comes out.

Most supermarkets decided to accept defeat and didn’t offer John Lewis any competition.

Then Aldi’s 2020 Christmas Ad came out.

The ad completely blew up and currently sits with a view count of a whopping 7.7 million.

Who doesn’t love a story about cartoon carrots?

From the YouTube views - not many people dislike Kevin at all. Aldi has blown their competitors out of the water for 2 years in a row now.

The advert completely changed the Christmas game for Aldi. They went from being just a discount supermarket - a very successful one nonetheless - to THE Christmas supermarket.

The blueprint for how to do it had been mapped out by John Lewis. All the supermarkets know of the power of a great Christmas ad, yet none can capitalise on it as Aldi did.

Want to really get a feel for how powerful the 2 adverts have been? Just check out this news headline below.

The above is an article breaking the news that people are queuing outside the store from 4 am in order to buy the now-famous “Kevin the Carrot” from their 2020 ad - yes, there is still a demand 12 months on.

Aldi even dedicated a whole page of their website to the story - it’s definitely worth checking it out (link to page)!

This is not just an unbelievable Christmas ad. The real strategy behind it is even better.

As you can tell, the Aldi Christmas ad is heavily targeted at kids. An interesting choice when kids aren’t the ones spending the money in the store.

Instead of using the ad to try and get adults to come into the store. They focused on bringing the kids into the store, who indirectly bring the parents.

They come to the store to buy “Kevin the Carrot”, they then see all of Aldi’s deals and leave with their Christmas shopping.

The online impact is always shown clearly on Google Trends.

Below you can see the dot in a time frame of Nov 1- 7, notice that this is the very bottom of an increase in searches.

The 2020 Aldi ad was released on Nov 5th.

A clear indicator of the effect of the ad online.

The Lessons

1. Go hard on Christmas - This is another example of how important it can be to associate yourself with the holiday. There is so much passion, emotion and (most importantly) money involved in the celebrations that it can be very profitable for companies. John Lewis did it, Aldi is now doing it and you can just see the exponential effects of it.

2. The power of ads - As technology evolves you hear marketers throw out the latest and greatest way of advertising: NFT campaigns, using influencers, social media, etc. Yet, the power of a TV ad is not going anywhere. If you are able to connect with your consumers as Aldi has done, it can be priceless.

3. Connection with the consumer - Advertising different deals and discounts is great. You’ll probably make a good amount of sales. It certainly won’t take your brand to the next level. Connect with your consumers on an emotional level and you will have customers for life.

4. Differentiate your target audience - One of the greatest things about this ad is the fact that Aldi did not aim the ad at its target market. They aimed it at the kids. It just goes to show that you don’t always have to follow the traditional and orthodox ways of marketing, in fact, untraditional is often more successful.

How To Implement It

All you have to do is create an ad that connects with the consumer and goes viral enough that people are willing to queue up at 4 am to buy a carrot teddy bear.

Fairly simple, right?

Unfortunately not, it will be extremely hard to imitate what Aldi did. But here are some great places to start:

• Focus on connecting - As I said above connecting with consumers can completely revolutionise your business. A good amount of your content (if not all) should be trying to create that emotional connection with your audience. This is how you create repeat customers with a much higher lifetime value than ones who simply purchase due to a deal.

• Try - The truth is Aldi knew they had a great advert back in 2020, but they probably didn’t predict that it would take off as it did. The moral of the story is that you have to buy a ticket to be in the raffle. Pump out great content consistency and you never know which piece will be the one to go viral!

• Have fun with it - Let’s be honest, we all cracked a little smile when we heard them saying “Ebanana Scrooge”. The whole ad is lighthearted and fun, which makes it so much more enjoyable for the audience - whether adult or child. Be like Aldi and make your content fun. No one wants to watch a boring ad, about how you’re the best in the business!

This has been a breakdown of Aldi’s marketing strategy with its Christmas Adverts. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy into your business!

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I’ll see you next Sunday!