Christmas season: people are more careful regarding products they buy. As a discounter, ALDI is seen as a low-quality retailer, mainly for Christmas: customers are less lucky to come & non-customers would not consider ALDI. How to change people's perception on ALDI’s quality & make the brand competitive on premium products to increase in-store traffic in the weeks leading up to the holiday season?

We knew that price is influencing people’s perception of quality. Thus, with an institute, we tricked people making them test 3 times the same Christmas product at different price ranges and asking them which one they preferred. They mainly chose the high priced one when it was all ALDI’s products! We realized those tests with foie gras, champagne, pain surprise & smoked salmon.

Data was at the heart of our strategy to do a strong demonstration of the following affirmation "price is influencing our perception of quality".We co-constructed tests with Ipsos and interrogated a panel of 313 persons with the following test protocol:

• 4 festive products (key products for ALDI) were selected for testing

• 3 prices indicated for each product: ALDI’s price (low),intermediate and high price. The latter two were established following competitors’ prices, to remain realistic.

• 313 people were tested through a representative sample.For each product, the respondent tasted 3 samples presented at 3 different prices - either in ascending order or descending order.

• For each price, he was asked about his appreciation of the product and his preference between tasted products.

Results were stunning:

• 92% of respondents perceived a difference between tastings...while it was the same product.

• 81.25% of people preferred products when priced high.

The results of the study were displayed on TV, VOL, Social Media, Digital Banners, Prints, Radio and ALDI’s Website. A full 360° advertising campaign.

End of November, a teasing announced the "real surprise of Christmas" using test extracts (ALDI’s website, social networks, catalog paper). On December 4 weeks revealing results on all 360° medias.

We realized that our tests were having a behavioral impact doing it as most of our testers were tricked & choosing the high-priced product each time. But it was when post-testing our campaign that we discovered that our campaign was doing a pedagogic work - People thinking that this campaign:

- “Inform me well”: score 48 - IPSOS standard:31

- “Teach me something new”: score 39 - IPSOS standard:24

We had strong response from our target audience:

- TV & radio spots emerging strongly: score 65 in recognition (Ipsos norm 60 & Lidl 44)for TV and 67 for radio(norm 44)

- Attractiveness way above the norm:67 TV (norm 57), 60 radio (norm 41)

A campaign fully meeting our target audience and a brand perception drastically changing: “this campaign gives me an other image of this brand” score 34(norm 22)