Aldi Süd's #Aldistorys Campaign Spotlights Children in Poverty

A new media campaign by the discounter Aldi Süd, titled #Aldistorys, makes visible a group rarely featured in advertising: children affected by poverty and their families. The campaign focuses on the so-called "Aldi children" — those who grew up with the discounter and its products. Without clichéd exaggeration, a commercial shows the lived reality of children in poverty in the 1990s. During that decade, shopping at Aldi could reveal one's poverty, and the Aldi bag was used to stigmatize poor people. In the 1990s, the author was one of these children and hid the bag from classmates. Today she understands what no one suspected back then. She feels seen and represented by the commercial. At the same time, children affected by poverty are rarely as self-confident as the campaign might suggest. The campaign aims to bring attention to a group that is otherwise largely invisible in advertising.