SHORT N’ SWEET
Objective: Turn casual shoppers into Trader Pros, loyal customers who visit weekly, spend more, and advocate for the brand.
Problem: Customers perceive Trader Joe’s as being inconvenient.
Target Audience: The Ritual Snacker: Age 18-35, including young professionals and college students balancing busy lives with flavorful escapes.
Insight: People will go to wild lengths to satisfy their cravings.
Strategy: The best snacks are a little out of the way.
“Your Cravings Are Calling” is a social first campaign that takes the brand’s perceived "inconvenience" and flips it. Instead of apologizing for being out of the way, we celebrate the wild lengths fans will go to to “satisfy their cravings”. Using some of the brand’s most popular snacks, we accentuate the allure of Trader Joe’s and encourage their more casual shoppers to embrace the chaos.
BACKGROUND
Trader Joe’s is a quirky but popular grocery chain with an ever changing selection of exclusive products. Despite their limited number of store locations, they’ve somehow managed to amass an almost cult-like following.
To test its popularity, we ran a survey to see just how many people are actually shopping there.
Our results found that even though 94.5% of our 60+ survey respondents have shopped at Trader Joe’s before, only about 14.5% of them shop there weekly. And more than half said they only visit a few times a month at MOST.
OBJECTIVE
Turn casual shoppers into Trader Pros, loyal customers who visit weekly, spend more, and are brand super fans.
What makes a Trader Pro?
They’re the people who know the aisles and products by heart, anticipate seasonal drops, share their finds and recommend new products to their friends, keeping a personal top 5 list, and most importantly shopping weekly, not just casually.
Quotes from real trader pros
“I buy (Hot & Sweet Jalapeños) 3-4 jars at a time. I mainly eat them in sandwiches … but they make everything more delicious.”
“Last year, at my physical, my doctor asked me about things I enjoy… I immediately said ‘I like walking around Trader Joe’s … Trader Joe’s is my happy place.”
“I’m not a ‘I can eat the whole bag in one sitting’ kinda person but when it comes to these .. I have to show restraint lol.”
“I buy (Hot & Sweet Jalapeños) 3-4 jars at a time. I mainly eat them in sandwiches … but they make everything more delicious.”
"My mom was on a mission: a Trader Joe’s mission. On the way home, the suitcase was so full that we had to sit on it just to get the zipper closed. In it was 50 pounds of Trader Joe’s products.”
But what is stopping more casual shoppers from evolving?
problem
Customers perceive Trader Joe’s as being inconvenient.
66% of our respondents said that most Trader Joe’s are in inconvenient location and 39.6% said it’s because they lack major brand goods, they just can’t get everything they need there, and they don’t want to make multiple trips to other grocery stores.
Quotes from casual shoppers
“I have to hop on a plane for 3 hours to get to one.”
But when they are making that treacherous journey, what are they making it for?
63% of people we surveyed said they are going there for those unique speciality snacks.
Trader Joe’s offers about 4,000 unique products per store.
80% of products are exclusive Trader Joe’s brands.
10–15 new products are introduced every week.
Key Traits
target audience
The Ritual Snackers: Age 18-35, including young professionals and college students balancing busy lives with flavorful escapes
Seeks both health-conscious and indulgent snacks
Drawn to unique, unexpected, and seasonal products
Shares product recommendations and experiences with their social circles
Values an authentic, communal environment that aligns with their lifestyle and identity
We want them to do whatever it takes to get to their Trader Joe’s goodies.
INSIGHT
People will go to wild lengths to satisfy their cravings.
From our research we know that 22% of people have crossed state lines to get their favorite snacks and 34% have considered it and would do so.
And we also know that if people want Trader Joe's bad enough, they will go the distance for it.
Even if it means driving 2-5 hours to get there.
We want to push that to the extreme.
We want people to stop at nothing to get their Trader Joe’s snacks
We want to inspire the types of cravings that would make someone spend $100 Door-Dashing pizza from Chicago to Vegas or brave a snowstorm to get to their favorite restaurant.
strategy
The best snacks are a little out of the way.
Trader Joe’s fans treat products like collectibles.
Inconvenience doesn’t stop them, it becomes part of the story.
Cravings override logic.
We want to embrace the “out-of-the-way” nature instead of apologizing for it.
Creative work
To Trader Pro’s, Trader Joe's is their happy place. It’s a little whacky and weird, and it transports them out of the ordinary, Think of a time you traveled far for something weird. That’s who we’re speaking to.
your cravings are calling
Trader Joe’s is the answer. It’s not about convenience, it’s about obsession. When cravings call, nothing else matters.
We're leaning into the absurdity of what you feel like when you eat snacks that are as weird as you, through a social-forward campaign to effectively reach our target and promote our new Trader Joe’s app.
The campaign visuals feature Trader Joe’s most popular products through data collected by Trader Joe’s themselves.
