A. & P. Mystification

Most advertising campaigns are designed to put a company's best foot forward in as clear and precise a manner as possible. In a quaint switch on that policy, these days the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. is offering a blend of self-abasement and mystification. Last week, A. & P. introduced the public to two men whose white aprons proclaim them to be Price and Pride. Price--hair parted down the middle, wire-rimmed glasses, collar pin--looks like a study in fiscal conservatism; Pride, bow-tied and portly, looks expansive. In print and on TV they humbly admit that the supermarket chain let them get separated ("Pride was forced to take a back seat...

Things weren't always so great at the Great A. & P."), but now they are working together again.

What is that supposed to mean? Officials of A. & P. and McCann-Erickson Inc., which created the campaign, admit that they have trouble putting the idea into more explicit words. But if stated bluntly, the message might go something like this: A. & P.'s three-year WEO ("Where Economy Originates") drive was a disastrous blunder. The chain went all out to undercut competitors' prices at the expense of quality; brand-name goods became scarce on the shelves, and many stores were allowed to become dirty. Result: customers abandoned A. & P. in droves for rival chains.

Now A. & P. intends to emphasize quality and spruce up the stores.

Long Slide. Will the consumer get that message? Much of Madison Avenue doubts it. William Bernbach, chairman of Doyle Dane Bernbach, says that the ads so far are "essay-type things on abstractions." Gerald Shapiro, president of the Carl Ally agency, says simply, "I don't know what Pride means." Charles Moss, president of Wells, Rich, Greene, believes "they [A. & P.] are just talking to themselves." He is right. McCann-Erickson Associate Creative Director Charles Ryant says the early ads were aimed largely at "energizing" A. & P.'s own employees, though later ones will stress the quality of A. & P. goods.

But if the ads so far convey no clear impression of what A. & P. is up to, the corporate story behind them is one of change and promise. Hamstrung for years by an inbred corporate structure, the company had been sliding long before ill-fated WHO. Its share of national food sales has dropped from 8.5% in 1965 to 5.8% now, which means that A. & P. has yielded its No. 1 sales position to California-based Safeway. A. & P. had too many stores; many were small and unprofitable, but until recently management did not have the nerve to lop them off. In December, however, Jonathan Scott, 45-year-old head of the Idaho-based Albertson's Inc. chain, was signed on as A. & P.'s first chief executive from the outside, and he has been making the old firm's bones rattle.

Clerks Drill. This year A. & P. has shuttered 1,223 stores, more than one-third of the 3,468 outlets it had in late February. It has opened 57 new ones. The doomed markets average 13,500 sq. ft. in area, the new ones 30,000 sq. ft. Over the next five years, the company plans to spend half a billion dollars on relighting, redesigning and redecorating stores and retraining employees. In the past two months a company-wide program has begun drilling clerks and supervisors in neatness and courtesy.

The results are not yet visible financially. In the fiscal year ended Feb. 25, A. & P. lost $157 million on sales of $6.9 billion. Last week it reported a profit of $5.6 million for the second quarter of the current fiscal year, but the figures were distorted by major accounting adjustments; without them, A. & P. had an operating loss of $13.3 million. Still, Wall Street analysts give it a chance of returning to profitability by next year.

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