The Tragic Decline of the Supermarket Flyer
I was at Countdown last week, loitering by the oranges, when I noticed something missing. The sacred paper flyer. You know the one. Folded like a map from 1998, its glossy pages bursting with specials that danced somewhere between absurd and oddly poetic. Kiwi Bacon just $6.99, plums from Hastings, 3 for $4. It was more than a promo booklet. It was visual rhythm.
We’ve quietly replaced it with email spam and clunky PDFs. Now you have to dig through a mobile app like you’re defusing a bomb, searching for yoghurt at 30% off. Something tactile got lost. The flyer wasn’t just marketing. It was a ritual. A kind of print poetry that disguised capitalism inside big red starbursts.
Here’s the thing about design: when it passes through too many filters and KPIs, it loses soul. The supermarket flyer, in its heyday, was designed chaos. Fonts too loud, colours screaming, items floating in a surreal paper salad. But somehow it worked. Not just for boomers. Gen Z would secretly love it too, the same way they fetishise VHS fuzz and chunky headphones.
So I mourn the flyer. But it’s not dead yet. A few local grocers down south are still printing them properly, and I salute them. When we talk about brand, we forget emotional touchpoints like this. Not a bloody TikTok trend. Give me a good Fruit of the Week page. One that smells faintly of offset ink. That’s heritage marketing worth saving.
We’ve quietly replaced it with email spam and clunky PDFs. Now you have to dig through a mobile app like you’re defusing a bomb, searching for yoghurt at 30% off. Something tactile got lost. The flyer wasn’t just marketing. It was a ritual. A kind of print poetry that disguised capitalism inside big red starbursts.
Here’s the thing about design: when it passes through too many filters and KPIs, it loses soul. The supermarket flyer, in its heyday, was designed chaos. Fonts too loud, colours screaming, items floating in a surreal paper salad. But somehow it worked. Not just for boomers. Gen Z would secretly love it too, the same way they fetishise VHS fuzz and chunky headphones.
So I mourn the flyer. But it’s not dead yet. A few local grocers down south are still printing them properly, and I salute them. When we talk about brand, we forget emotional touchpoints like this. Not a bloody TikTok trend. Give me a good Fruit of the Week page. One that smells faintly of offset ink. That’s heritage marketing worth saving.