Giant Eagle Has Made The Anticipated Decision To Eliminate Printed Ads

By Joel Albrizio

First reported by Supermarket News, Giant Eagle will now move forward without the distributed printed weekly ad. The printed ad will be available in-store only.

As shown below Supermarket News conducted a poll to determine what industry professionals thought of the move to digital.

With 658 industry professionals participating 60% felt "Digital Is King".

At Bad-Adz Digital our clients agree. One by one over the years clients have transitioned to digital. Supermarket retailers can not properly access supply chain availability and or price with print and all of the long lead times before publication.

U.S. Mail costs, paper increases, fuel surcharges added to markdowns no longer supported by the grocery wholesaler essentially make print an advertising vehicle of the past.

The move to digital allows Giant Eagle the opportunity to subsidize ad markdowns with real cost reductions in an effort to drive retail sales.

Now Giant Eagle can respond to the market with last minute changes and challenge the competition with specials unavailable to the competition two weeks earlier when their newsprint ad was composed.

We congratulate Giant Eagle with it's eye on the environment as well. When the world is thinking "Green" and considering the environment an important part of each of our lives, it's hard to believe the printed weekly ad has much of a future.