Posts Tagged ‘Albert Heijn’

Would you buy her apples?

Evil witch offering apples at Albert Heijn

Evil witch offering apples at Albert Heijn

Like most kids, when I was young, I learned not to buy apples from evil witches. I normally buy my apples at the Albert Heijn supermarket, but today I decided not to. See the picture at the right.

This supermarket has a temporary Snow White promotion, during which you can collect miniatures of all 7 dwarfs and other characters of Snow White’s fairy tale. It’s kind of weird to associate the apples you want to sell with an evil witch and the poisoned apple that caused Snow White to suffocate.

Two evenings for the price of one

Hamster weeks plastic bag from Albert Heijn

Hamster weeks plastic bag from Albert Heijn

Today I bought two evenings for the price of one. Tonight’s evening consisted of a microwave steamable meal, applepie yoghurt for desert and a tube of pringles on the couch, watching TV. The supermarket where I do my daily groceries, Albert Heijn has some special promotions of two for the price of one during what they call the ‘hoard’ weeks. They visualize this with some cartoons of hamsters who encourage to hoard carefully. Hamsters are known for hoarding. Accidentally the word ‘hamsteren’ means to hoard in Dutch. (And apparently the name of the creature is based on the similar German word “hamstern”.)

As a result of the great deal I made today, I payed only 10 euros for what otherwise would have cost me 20. In times of crisis this kind of huge savings are the welcome ones.  On the other hand, the microwave steamable meal was actually too small, requiring me to empty the Pringles tube in one go. And cooking my own dinner with fresh ingredients, would have been cheaper and might have resulted in a healthier meal with better taste. I might have saved even more money buying at the Lidl or any other supermarket than Albert Heijn of course, but then I would not have had such a great deal, and the satisfaction of achieving it! And I should not forget: tomorrow’s evening is already paid for…

Does Albert Heijn promote negative thoughts?

Packaging of black berry smoothie

Packaging of Albert Heijn's black berry smoothie

The Dutch super market chain Albert Heijn actively follows the “health” trend by selling healthy snacks. I recently bought a bag of Parisian carrots and a black berry smoothie in the AH to Go at a Dutch train station. The following train ride gave me some time and opportunity to have a look at the packaging of the smoothie. Although I would expect the healthy product to radiate optimism and good feeling, I was surprised to see the image on the right.

The image shows a description of what kinds of fruit are in the smoothie and next to it some very unhappy fruits! One seems to be drowning, shouting “help!!!”. The other is coughing (“uche uche!”). Not really what I would like to accociate with the food I consume… This could be an attempt to make the packaging less boring or even funny, but I fail to see how exactly. The rest of the packaging does not communicate anything funny and is indeed boring. I would like to know the impact of these cartoons on the overall image of the product. Do people find it funny? Do they feel happy about consuming fruit that was ‘sacrificed’ for their smoothie? (Is that the reason the fruits are screaming?) Do consumers accociate the product with (un)healthiness? And more in general: is it wise to associate products with negative expressions?