Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets are fairly new to Southern California… at least I think they are. I really only know they exist at all because of their goofy ads. They could be really nice, but how smart could they be trying to start a new grocery store in this market that is flooded not only with the big chains, but also some well-established smaller chains that people love more than their own kids, like Trader Joe’s.

Anyway, their whole thing with their ads is about how they use real customers instead of “high paid actors” to save money and pass that savings on to you. Why, here’s one of their real customers now…

Fresh and Easy Radio Spot – Jill

For starters, they lost me at the get go because they say they use “real customers” INSTEAD of “high paid actors.” Unless that golden throated announcer is a box boy or something, they paid an actor to do this ad. Plus, they paid all kinds of people to record the ad, place the media, the media itself, and so on. At this point, an actor doing the bulk of the copy is probably lost in the shuffle.

Second, I’m sorry, but this customer is having way too hard a time reading her line. Oh sure, she sounds like she’s freestylin’, but she definitely has some talking points in front of her and she’s not even getting those out clearly.

Top all that off with the fact that “Fresh & Easy” sounds like something you would find in the feminine hygiene aisle and you’ve got one heck of a crappy little ad.

J.