There is no publicly available information to provide evidence of the ads and promotions for the rice products of Walmart or Kroger; this is because Walmart doesn't have a private label for rice and although Kroger has private label rice products, the retail store does not normally advertise specific products of their private labels. Below is an outline of the research strategies to better understand why the information requested is publicly unavailable, as well as a deep dive into the findings (the spreadsheet is attached here). WALMART
- Walmart US markets lines of merchandise under their private label store brands, including Adventure Force, AutoDrive, BlackWeb, Equate, Everstart, Faded Glory, George, Great Value, Holiday Time, Hyper Tough, Kid Connection, and Mainstays, among others.
- Walmart's TV advertisement for Christmas 2017 and 2018 Black Friday focused on the Walmart store itself and what consumers could buy in Walmart and not Walmart’s private label rice product or the brands:
- 2017: "Leads the Pack"
- 2018: "Light Up Black Friday"
- There were thousands of web banner ads for Walmart in Moats’ database; unfortunately, no advertising images were found for any private label rice product or brands.
- Walmart print ads in 2017 and 2018 include thousands of brands. Unfortunately, no advertising images were found for Walmart’s private label rice products.
- Walmart online video ads include videos of great money-saving and time-saving tips, the hottest new products, entertaining ideas and inspiration, and 'Rollbacks' and 'Special Buys.' Unfortunately, no advertising images were found for Walmart’s private label rice product or the brands.
- OOH (outside of the home) ads and in-store retail ads did not show images for Walmart’s private label rice product or the brands.
KROGER
- Kroger's private label brands for rice includes Garden Vegetable 90 Second Rice, Enriched Long Grain White Rice, and Long Grain White Rice, among others.
- Kroger's TV advertisement, "Zero Waste," in 2018 focused on Kroger promoting the store's efforts to eliminate waste to zero to reduce hunger to zero. Private label rice products or Kroger rice brands were not found in the TV ad.
- There were thousands of web banner ads for Kroger in Moats’ database. Unfortunately, no advertising images were found for its private label rice product or the brands. Private Selection ads in Kroger mostly pertain to the brand itself and not for any specific product.
- Kroger's online video ads include videos of recipes, how-to videos, and community stories but no advertising videos were found for Kroger's private label rice products.
- Kroger's print ads in 2017 and 2018 include thousands of brands. Unfortunately, no advertising images were found for Kroger's rice brand products.
- OOH ads and in-store retail ads also did not show images for Kroger's private label rice products or the brands.
Research Strategy:
To provide examples of the requested advertising for 2017 and 2018 for Walmart or Kroger/Safeway Rice, we started our research by identifying the different private label brands for Walmart and Kroger—this was to ensure that Walmart or Kroger have private brands for rice product advertisement. From here, we looked at both companies' online stores for their rice products. We have identified the number of rice products under their private labels. We also found that Kroger has its rice brand that is carried in Kroger retail stores and online.
Initially, in order to locate information on TV ads, print ads, online video ads, web banner ads and OOH ads for Walmart or Kroger for the years 2017 and 2018, we looked at each company's press releases and its media kits for any branding, marketing and advertising materials used for their rice products. Unfortunately, while there were press releases for private label brands of these retailers, none were found that were specific to the rice products of Walmart. However, we found private label brand details for the rice products of Kroger. For online video ads, we searched each store's social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Online videos of Walmart or Kroger from YouTube are mostly videos about great money-saving and time-saving tips, the hottest new products, entertaining ideas and inspiration and the like and none from its private products nor other brands the retail stores carry.
Next, we searched third-party sources for TV commercials from TV ad measurement tools for brands, like iSpot TV, and found commercials (which were inactive) for Walmart and Kroger. The TV ads focused on the retail store and not specifically on the rice private products. We also searched for credible articles, blogs, and other advertisement sources, like Ads of the World, but have not found any TV ads for Walmart or Kroger rice products. We also scoured through third-party advertising analytics sites such as AdAge and Adweek which commonly presents ad material for companies. Unfortunately, this was also unsuccessful to find TV ads.
We also searched online flyers since most stores have online copies of the print flyers they send out. We used several resources to attempt finding these ads (e.g., WeeklyAds US, SmartCanucks and CA Flyers, among others) which contained past and up-to-date flyers and deals from leading retailers specifically for Walmart and Kroger but we found no print ads for their private label rice products.
Lastly, we tried to find ad agencies or marketing firms used by these retailers. We intended to look for any case studies or reports of marketing/advertising services these agencies completed for Walmart and Kroger. However, this proved to be unsuccessful because Walmart has its own advertising media and we didn’t find any ads specific for rice products under their private label brands. While Kroger's news information states that the company hired DDB New York as their first-ever agency of record in 2019, which means they did not have an ad agency for 2017 and 2018.