Kwik Save

Kwik Save are in deep trouble. Since the early 90s, it has lost over 80 & of its stores due to a series of sales and mergers, and it has now virtually disappeared from the grocery market. I am not surprised really; some people suggest it is because it almost completely ran out of stock a couple of weeks ago, but I think it is because of its name. Kwik Save? What the hell is that? The ‘Kw’ bit is just horrible, like the noise you make when someone is performing the Heimlich Maneuver on you. What is wrong with a good old fashioned Qu? Not only does it sound more graceful, but it is very pleasing on the eye. You have the gentle rounding of ‘Q’, with its elegant sweeping tail, then the popular and gentle ‘U’ as opposed to the angular vulgarness of a K. If Kwik Save was a human, it would be a smelly boy called Waz, who drinks Carling, reads Nuts, eats all his meals with ketchup and still lived with his mum.

Although spelled correctly, the ‘Save’ bit of the name isn’t much better than the ‘Kwik’. Firstly, people like to say they are going to X’s, for example: Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer’s – these all work and have all been pretty successful recently. You can’t really say Asda’s very easily, which is why they are not doing as well as they were. You can’t say “I am going to Kwik Save’s”; it just sounds wrong. People who were planning to go to Kwik Save probably change their mind and go to Tesco’s instead, as they can tell their friends more easily. Only loners and the mute can get away with shopping at Kwik Save, as they don't have to announce it to anyone. Secondly, people think all supermarkets are pretty cheap these days, because they are, with only a 0.5% like for like difference between the top four companies. They like to remind their customers of this, with all supermarkets currently having at least some adverts based on price. And come on, no one is going to name their supermarket ‘Slow Squander’, or ‘Slow Skwander’ perhaps. Thus it is pointless putting the word ‘Save’ at the end of their name, as they can’t realistically be much cheaper than their competitors. For what it is worth, all supermarkets are about equally as quick (or Kwik) to use – I am not aware of any initiatives Kwik Save have made to make the shopping experience any quicker than any of their rivals.

Kwik Save do not just have a misspelled and meaningless name, they do not have a good slogan, which is necessary for a successful supermarket. Tesco has ‘Every Little Helps’. Brilliant. The genius of this strap line is that it can be used, not just for food, but in any situation – Club Card Points, Computers For Schools, recycling, expanding to Poland, administering tetanus jabs, anything really. It doesn’t matter which wildly successfully whim Tesco’s Management choose to go on next, they can always make a decent argument for it by suggesting ‘Every Little Helps’. Sainsbury’s have the less universal but much more inspiring ‘Try Something New Today’. That is fabulous because it taps into the UK’s recent interest in more diverse food, but still sounds dynamic and young, which it achieves by not asserting some stuffy meaningless message about quality. It might not be as enduring as ‘Every Little Helps’, but it is properly aspirational and gels wonderfully its excellent long running Jamie Oliver adverts.

So where does that leave Kwik Save? It can’t focus on the exciting high mark-up food or non food service unless it makes them super cheap and unprofitable, as it is lumbered with the name Kwik Save. It can’t use a meaningful slogan, because its function is already incorporated in its name. It now also has only 229 stores, which is a sticky situation for a retailer. People universally blame Sainsbury’s loss of its number one position in 1995 on being too brown and expensive, and having terrible stock control. These are indeed the reasons it stopped making decent profits, but even in 2004, the companies worst ever year, it was still serving more customers than its best ever year, 1993. Its problem with market share was quite simply that it didn’t, and still doesn’t have enough floor space in terms of stores compared to its rivals. Tesco must have outbid it on new developments, whilst John Cleese was too busy telling us about ‘Value To Shout About’. Kwik Save are in an even worse situation, as all of their decent stores were converted to Somerfield before they were sold.

Saving isn’t dead, but it is just so obvious that there is almost no point mentioning it. Being quick is still quite popular too, but maybe being Kwik will soon be dead.