As a consumer, we encounter design and user experience – offline and online – in some form or the other everyday. One such form are the supermarkets brands that play a huge part in our lives on a day-to-day basis. With the recent growing popularity of German owned supermarket chains – LIDL and ALDI, the British chains have had to re-think their brand strategy and positioning in order to win the battle of supermarkets.

The Morrisons flyer (shown above) slipped through my doormat this morning and as I was just about to toss it in the junk mail pile, something caught my eye and tempted me to give the flyer a bit of a thought. It was their strapline – “I’m your new look cheaper Morrisons”. I couldn’t help but look up the rational behind using the word “cheaper” in their brand communications. Surely, using a word as strong as “cheap” could have negative connotations.

The background check suggests, the marketing campaign, created by DLKWLowe introduced the strapline “It’s the new cheaper Morrisons” in May 2014 to promote Morrisons’ “biggest ever” round of price cuts, which saw it lower the cost of more than 1,200 products. Chief executive Dalton Philips was recorded saying customers “shouldn’t fail to see” billboards and TV ads with the new message and that Morrisons is trying to get across a “simple message” that the supermarket is now “permanently cheaper”.

Okay, so this justifies the use of the word “cheaper”, but did it work?

The use of primary colour yellow as the background definitely attracts attention and I didn’t “fail to notice” this flyer layered amongst handful others. The typeface also compliments the graphics and colours, it almost feels like it has been typed using a typewriter, reflecting low spend and “cheap” methods. One other element that supports the objective of the campaign, is the use of the red pointing down arrow blocks that display the price of the items – simple, clean and bold.

Overall, I believe DLKWLowe have delivered an excellent and effective campaign – it does what it’s expected to achieve, however I would still be dubious about the use of the word “cheaper” in any brand communication piece.