Business Anthropology - ANTH 4800 - Semester Project at Clemson University
I conducted 5 interviews, four of them were with females who are ages 20, 20, 31, and 54. The male is 21 years old. The two 20 and and one 21 year old are college students, the 31 year old is a teacher in the Greenville school system, married with no children. The 54 year old is single and is the director of a child daycare program. All of the participants shop at ALDI no less than three times per month. The 31 year old was most frequent, with 6 times per month. All were looking to find a great deal with a quality product
ETIC
Cut waste - using tertiary packaging to ship and present items on the shelf, also changing secondary packaging for most items so that it is either recyclable material or can be recycled
Cut choice - minimum name brand items, most are private label
Awards & sustainable initiative - “Twice as Nice” guarantee where they check their products twice over; they bring in fresh produce daily, and operate their own small facilities to keep prices low. They have low employee numbers so that not as many people are working
Care for Environment - no plastic bags at check out - you bring your own recyclable bags and bag them yourself.
EMIC
Shoppers want best price - willing to sacrifice choice and options because they just want a good price. But they aren’t willing to sacrifice good quality for price.
Lack of understanding - customers don’t truly know why prices are low. They just know that they are. Not enough information that is being advertised to the public about the initiatives being taken to reduce waste and cut cost
Dislike color choices - brand logo seems to lack a freshness quality. One participant stated that it reminded her of an airline company instead of a grocery store. Participants stated that green should be in the logo because it represents freshness
Logo
Changing the color of the logo would easily convey the message that Aldi cares about the environment and about sustainable efforts. This would be a surface level change that could make a large difference in how they are perceived.
Explain Reduction of Price
Not only does Aldi “talk” about sustainable efforts and initiatives - they take them and provide opportunities to help the earth, daily. it’s a choice that Aldi makes daily to enhance the lives of the customers that shop there. By taking more time to share with the customer the effort that they go to, customers would not only understand why prices are low, but it could create a change in how people live their daily lives.
Information on this topic was on their website, but extremely difficult to find. If articles were written to share about the local farmers who work to provide produce, or about the packaging engineer who cut ⅓ rd of the waste down, or the manager who runs the store - each story has an impact and would help explain why the prices are so low.
Here is an example of the current logo that I modified to show a more sustainable and fresh look compared to the current vibrant and bright logo.