I ran into Trader Joe’s in late August to grab some TJ essentials—tiny cookies, peri peri sauce, hash browns, crunchy chili sauce…
While roaming the aisles and also looking for the next interesting product idea (like the good brand professional that I am), I got a hankering for some wild rice soup.
Not able to find the wild rice, I asked an employee for help. He was surprised that it wasn’t stocked and wondered if it was a seasonal product. After I laughed, “what season is wild rice season?” we both laughed and shrugged. I finished shopping and headed to the checkout.
As I was having my usual delightful conversation with the checkout person—someone I’d never met before, but now was seriously like my best friend—the guy I asked about wild rice came running up to me. He said, “I checked in the back, and apparently wild rice season starts in September, so it’ll be back then.”
Great!
As I was walking out of the store with a smile on my face, I was struck by how different the experience at Trader Joe’s is than anywhere else.
Why am I telling you this?
Because standing out in an ownable way is one of the best and under-understood brand strategies around.
Trader Joe’s stands out for a number of reasons—their whimsical branding, their unique products—but what really does it for me is that employees are kind and fun. They seem like they actually want to be there, and it’s the only store where I have real conversations with complete strangers. And no other store comes close to the level of customer service that Trader Joe’s delivers.
It’s a case study worth considering when thinking about how to stand out amongst the competition.
Their success comes not from selling eggs and milk, but from defining, aligning, and demonstrating their values from the rice aisle to the sample counter to the checkout.
Have you ever had an experience like that at Trader Joe’s?
In our FREE TRAINING, we’ll dig into why and how you can build differentiation in every interaction—regardless of your brand, industry, or target consumer.
PS Some participants from a qualitative study agree with us about Trader Joe’s…
