Aldi. Like brands. Only cheaper

 

This advert is an example of Aldi’s ‘Like brands. Only cheaper.’ advertising campaign. In which a branded product is compared with an Aldi version of the same product and the two are presented to be equal on everything but price. This suggests to the viewer that as the only differentiating feature is price they should purchase the cheaper option.

This is an example of the ‘competition template’ described by Goldenberg, Mazurksy and Solomon (1999). It is suggested that this template works by comparing the product being advertised with another product which the audience would expect to be superior. In the case of these adverts Aldi used the fact that most people would assume that branded products are of higher quality than own brand products. They then disprove this belief by showing that people do not like branded products any more than they do Aldi own brand ones (use of the ‘just plain folks’ altercast) and showing how their product is actually superior through being lower in price.

It could be argued that these adverts also use the ‘interactive experiment template’ (Goldenberg et al, 1999) as it suggests that the people in the advert have tried both brands in order to form their opinions of the products, and that this is an experiment the viewer could also try at home. The aim of this technique is to get the viewer to realise the benefits of the product by experiencing them.

Goldenberg, J., Mazursky, D., Solomon, S. (1999). The fundamental templates of quality ads. Marketing Science, 18, 333-351.