COMPTON, Calif. — Ralphs Grocery Co., in its Southern California division, has paired up milk and salad in a new bottletopper coupon promotion.
The coupons, which ring the neck of Ralphs' private-label gallon jugs of milk, offer $1 off any two bags of Fresh Express salad mixes and $1 off any one jar of refrigerated LiteHouse salad dressing.
This promotion, orchestrated by St. Paul, Minn.-based Connect Communications, comes on the heels of a similar promotion that helped launch Sara Lee whole-grain bread at Ralphs stores in Southern California. Ralphs is a division of Cincinnati-based Kroger Co.
Connect Communications designed the new point-of-sale sign that, in effect, directs produce customers back to the dairy case to get their money-saving coupons by buying a gallon of milk, said the company's president Mike Klabunde.
“We offer these types of services now,” Klabunde said. “We can design and produce such POS materials, in-store signage, in conjunction with bottletopper promotions.”
The colorful poster and sign at Ralphs carries an illustration of the current bottletopper coupons and images of the produce aisle items for which the coupons are instantly redeemable. Measuring 9 by 11 inches, the signs are double-faced with tape so they will adhere, for example, to a dairy-case door or the store's front window.
Impressed with the results of the Sara Lee event, Ralphs now plans to run a bottletopper promotion each month. For the Sara Lee promotion, which ended in the fall, the coupon redemption rate reached 8%. Stores saw sales of Sara Lee's white, smooth whole-grain bread quadruple during the promotion.
The retailer rolled out the milk and salad project Jan. 15, and the promotion is scheduled to run for two weeks. The coupons are expected to reach at least half a million shoppers, Klabunde said. Ralphs has more than 200 stores in its Southern California division.
