BLOOM SUPERMARKETS
By
Mark Dolliver
Were any actual gingerbread men injured in the
production of this campaign? I'll bet they were! And a good thing, too,
as Bloom's oddball ads gave us a respite from the cheery banality that
characterizes so much holiday-themed advertising.
It was a shrewd way
of conveying the idea that Bloom (a year-old, self-consciously modern
spin-off of the large Food Lion chain) isn't your typical supermarket.
Other stores may help you have happy holidays; Bloom will help you have
happier holidays. Under the circumstances, why wouldn't you give Bloom
a try?
This approach also enabled Bloom to deliver a seasonal message
while distancing itself from the great Happy-Holidays-vs.-Merry
Christmas debate. (Traditionalists wouldn't want to be wished a
"Merrier Christmas," after all.) In fact, the unsentimental humor of
the campaign (complete with foot-on-fire gingerbread man) is in sync
with the way lots of people actually feel about the season: lots of
fun, but also something of an ordeal. The mushier genre of holiday
advertising turns its back on the second half of that equation. Not
everyone will appreciate Bloom's departure from the norm.
But that's a plus for people who do enjoy the ads, reinforcing their sense of themselves as a cut above the conventional consumer and, hence, natural candidates to shop at an unconventional grocery store like Bloom.
Agency
Boone/Oakley, Charlotte, N.C.
Client
Bloom unit of Food Lion, Salisbury, N.C., a division of Delhaize Group,
Brussels, Belgium
Creative director/art director
John Boone
Creative director
David Oakley
Art director
Eric Roch von Rochsburg
Copywriter
Paul Korel
Model maker
Gordon Smuder, Minnefex, Minneapolis
Photographer
Joe Lampi
