Top Brands
THE ASK
Prove to members and non-members alike that BJ’s carries top brands their family loves at low prices.
THE PROBLEM
Many shoppers believe wholesale clubs don’t carry the brands they rely on, creating hesitation to join and under-utilization among existing members.
THE INSIGHT
People want to save money, but not at the cost of giving up the brands they trust.
THE SOLUTION
Make savings tangible by putting top brands front and center to show shoppers they don’t have to change what they buy to start saving, only where they buy it.
PROBLEMShoppers assume wholesale clubs don’t carry the brands their families actually want.
We looked at how people talk about wholesale shopping and found that while price is a draw, brand trust is still a major deciding factor. Many shoppers believe they’ll have to compromise on quality or familiarity if they switch from a traditional grocery store to a club.
FROM THIS“I like saving money, but I still want the brands I know. I just don’t think you can always find them at wholesale clubs.”
– Grocery shopper
TO THIS“I didn’t realize BJ’s had the same brands I buy every week. I thought it was mostly bulk stuff.”
– New BJ’s member
Why the disconnect?
For years, wholesale clubs have been associated more with bulk than with brands. While BJ’s merchants have been carefully building assortments that reflect what families actually buy, that story wasn’t always visible to shoppers.
In a crowded retail landscape, competitors have done a better job owning the narrative around brand variety, while BJ’s strength quietly lived on the shelves. Without seeing those brands called out clearly in marketing, shoppers filled in the gaps themselves, assuming they’d have to trade familiarity for savings.
The result wasn’t a product problem.
It was a perception problem.
People won’t sacrifice brands to save.
CREATIVE CAMPAIGNTop Brands
To change perception, we didn’t need to convince people BJ’s offers value.
We needed to show them they don’t have to give anything up to get it.
So we built a simple, repeatable system that put familiar brands front and center and paired them with a clear truth.
Savings shouldn’t mean settling.
By anchoring the campaign in recognizable brands and a clear price advantage, Top Brands reframed BJ’s from a place you go for bulk to a place you go for the brands your family already buys, just at a smarter price.
This shift made the value of membership feel immediate, tangible, and impossible to ignore.
WHY IT WORKED
We didn’t ask people to rethink how they shop, we simply showed them they didn’t have to.
By leading with the brands families already trust, the campaign removed the biggest barrier to choosing a wholesale club: fear of compromise. Instead of positioning BJ’s as an alternative to the grocery store, it positioned BJ’s as the smarter version of it.
The simple, repeatable copy system also made the idea easy to scale across teams and channels, keeping acquisition and engagement aligned around one clear story.
RESULTS + IMPACT
For non-members, it reframed the club as a place to find the brands they already buy, making membership feel more relevant and immediately worthwhile.
For members, it reinforced that the value they pay for isn’t just in bulk, but in everyday savings on brands they already love.
The simple, repeatable copy system also made the idea easy to scale across teams and channels, keeping acquisition and engagement aligned around one clear story.
TEAM
Creative Director: Keith Evans, Timothy Bildsten
Copywriter: Carly Smith
Design: Jonathan Biggs
Media: Noble