As Director of Advertising for Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. Fred Kopp planned and directed many very successful ad campaigns to develop brand identities and then promote a wide array of private label product lines.
Opportunities: Wegmans embarked on the development of many new, profitable private label product lines. Some of these were being of higher quality vs. traditional private label items, such as their soft drink and snack categories.
Challenges: Competitors claimed to have similar products. Customers had negative perceptions based on lower quality products previously carried. Plus, it was necessary to compete with the national brand products.
Solutions: Fred spearheaded the development of advertising tactics and teams of experts to best communicate and introduce these products. He directed activities within Wegmans’ in-house creative services group to develop a brand identity for each new product, beginning with package design. He engaged Wegmans’ ad agency to devise unique approaches using TV, radio and billboard advertising in very unique ways. Fred also inspired numerous partnership programs and community events tie-ins.
Results: Acceptance was very positive, resulting in many successes and driving unprecedented growth and profits. In the case of the success of Wegmans WPOP soft drinks, other product lines were developed and launched!
