Safeway Inc. plans to build on the Promise campaign it launched in July last year as the economy shows signs of recovery and consumers start trading up.

Speaking to analysts and investors on a conference call today, CEO Steve Burd said the US retailer will “broaden” the message of the Promise campaign in 2010 of “lowering everyday products”.

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“We wanted to stimulate traffic and get people into the store with the campaign,” Burd said. “The best place for this to be delivered is in store. We want to improve price perception, we recognise that might take time but we think we can accelerate that curve.”

“We want to make an announcement to consumers, we believe we have significant news, that we have lowered thousands of everyday products and will continue that for some time,” he added.

“Things we thought were important going into the recession were still the case. Great quality in produce and a tremendous shopping environment. Those are the kind of points of difference we want to leverage and build upon. We don’t believe we are going to stay static with what we went out with in July. We have new work on the way to continue that process.”

Safeway saw its shares slide earlier today on the release of its earnings guidance for 2010.

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The firm said it expects earnings per share guidance of $1.65 – $1.85 per diluted share.

Analysts on average were looking for $1.85, according to Thomson Reuters.

The retailer last week posted a fourth-quarter net loss of US$1.61bn due to a goodwill impairment charge of $1.82bn.

Excluding that charge, net income would have stood at $209.1m. Net income in the fourth quarter of 2008 was $338m.

Sales declined 8.1% to $12.7bn in the fourth quarter of 2009 due to an additional week in 2008 and a 4.1% fall in identical-store sales, excluding fuel.