Three Things We Wish Large Media Sites Wouldn’t Do Regarding Aldi

Aldi is big business. We’re not just talking about Aldi itself, although Aldi itself is big business, too. The grocer is perhaps the fastest growing supermarket in America, with no growth end in sight. As I write this, Aldi has only recently launched an ambitious five-year plan to add 800 stores nationwide.

When I say Aldi is big business, I’m also talking about Aldi coverage. Some very big media outlets, both on television and online, will dip into the Aldi waters. Local media will cover the grand opening of a new Aldi. National media will analyze Aldi’s business decisions. And media of all shapes and sizes will cover a wide range of developments in the Aldi realm, from product recalls to new Aldi Find releases.

We like a lot of the Aldi coverage. In some cases, it offers us valuable insight that helps us to do our job as Aldi bloggers better. (In a few cases, we’ve been even fortunate enough to be one of the sources for that Aldi coverage.) Shoppers benefit from all the knowledge they can gain about the Aldiverse. Major media can have additional access to Aldi corporate as well as analysts with a working knowledge of how Aldi operates, and that can offer an additional window into how the grocer does business.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have our frustrations. As a blog steeped in all things Aldi, we occasionally see things come through major media outlets that we wished we didn’t see. For big corporate sites, Aldi is just a tiny sliver of what they cover, and occasionally that lack of specialization comes through in how those sites do their work about the grocer. The following are a few examples:

The Aldi Product Puff Pieces

• Run, Don’t Walk, To Get This Aldi Dupe
• This Aldi Find is the Winter Find You Need
• This Aldi Product is So Good, You’ll Want to Grab Two

These are lightly modified versions of headlines for real articles run by well-known media outlets. We’ve covered these clickbait-style posts in our own post, and they all tend to have one thing in common: they could easily have been written by Aldi’s own PR team. These posts tend to hype up products to such a degree that I have to look out my window to make sure a mob of superfans isn’t charging down the street toward my nearest Aldi.

I’ve got no issue with pieces alerting shoppers to what’s on shelves. We do that every day, from our product reviews to our open threads. What I do have an issue with are articles that are less about informing shoppers and more about pure clicks.

The Lists

Oh, the lists.

Corporate sites love their lists. Barely a week goes by when we don’t spot a list from a major media site somewhere in the wild. We see a little bit of everything, from best of and worst of lists to do’s and don’ts. Most of the time, the lists relate to Aldi products, although we’ve spotted the occasional etiquette post. 

Disclaimer: we’re known to read the lists, and yes, we write lists, too. Guilty as charged. But, some of the corporate lists we’ve seen are so bad. Some of them only talk about price, completely ignoring other factors like relative product quality. Others shamelessly scrape their take on products from other sources, which they may or may not link to. Still others use criteria so hard to understand that we can’t figure out why the product is on the list at all.

Maybe the biggest problem with these lists is that they frequently show no knowledge of how Aldi actually works. For instance, some lists will take a blanket position on an Aldi product that is regionally sourced, like fresh meat or produce, when in fact local suppliers can vary. Another shortcoming: many lists ignore the fact that Aldi will tweak its suppliers and products, which can render a list obsolete over time. As with puff pieces, I wonder how much these are about clicks versus being genuinely informational.

The Aldi Pieces Written By Someone Who Has Not Set Foot in Aldi

This particular problem can be part of the previous two categories, or it can be its own problem. We’ve seen lists that we’re pretty sure were concocted by writers who have never tried, let alone picked up, the items in the list. We’ve seen hype-filled puff pieces by authors who may or may not live anywhere near said Aldi. And we’ve seen plenty of other kinds of Aldi pieces — from the financial to product coverage — by authors whose writing strongly suggests that they have little or no firsthand knowledge of the store.

Do you have to have shopped at Aldi to cover Aldi? Well, no, I suppose not. You might even be able to do a half-decent job at some parts of Aldi coverage. But let’s be honest: it’s not the same. There are some things you just get by spending time in the store. You understand better how Aldi operates, from stocking to checkout. What’s more, you also have a better feel for product quality when you actually buy and use Aldi products.

Closing Thoughts:

We don’t dislike everything large corporate media outlets do with Aldi coverage, but we have our gripes. Some of their coverage of Aldi lacks experience and expertise with the store, which in our opinion leads to writing that is incomplete or even inaccurate. And let’s be honest: some of it only exists for clicks.

Like anything on the internet, we encourage readers to keep in mind the source when reading these sorts of pieces.