The Guy Scaring The Bejeesus Out Of Safeway

You’ve probably seen this ad online. At first I didn’t watch the video because I figured I’d get flooded with computer viruses (like I did last week). But I was curious about something — if grocers really do fear this guy, it would follow that they know who he is, right? So I printed the photo and showed it to the managers at three nationwide grocery chains in my town.

The first manager said “Nope, no idea who he is. But we’re not a Piggly Wiggly.”

The second manager chuckled and said “We’d never associate the phrase ‘brain-dead’ with groceries. That’s Albertson’s.”

And the last manager said “That’s the guy who plugged up our Men’s room toilet last week! If you’d seen that, you’d be terrified of this guy too. Thanks for bringing this in.”

Batting 1 for 3 piqued my curiosity, so I went to the library and used a computer to watch the video. It had four scenes (one for each technique) and was quite interesting:

Scene #1:

The guy pushes a cart down the aisle, pretending to shop while he hides 90% of his groceries under his clothing. The big baseball cap proves ideal for small but expensive items. And then he goes to the checkout counter and pays for the remaining 10%.

Scene #2:

The guy is slumped in a Lazy Boy in a dark apartment. He has voluntarily reduced his caloric intake by 90%. He’s now skinny as a rail, with sunken eye sockets and collapsed cheeks. So his photo in the ad has obviously been Photoshopped.

Scene #3:

Back at the store, the guy purchases 10% of his usual groceries. Then he steps outside and hovers near the door. A senior citizen approaches, pulling one of those two-wheeled metal grocery carts. The guy offers to pull the load for her. And when she says “Aren’t you a nice young man,” he grips the cart and takes off running.

Scene #4:

The guy is standing in the fruit section, removing price stickers from individual apples. The video fast-forwards to him in a Men’s room stall, removing stickers from sides of beef and replacing them with apple stickers. In the final segment we see him heading for the Self-Checkout machines.

I hate to admit this, but I’m sold.