Comments on: Coles ads show how to make newspaper advertising work

By: Susan Swann

Susan Swann — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:15:11 +0000

http://www.theage.com.au/natio.....tml?page=1

By: Bryce

Bryce — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:38:16 +0000

Susan: Do you have a link to that piece?

By: Susan Swann

Susan Swann — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:57:41 +0000

Coles have also made this campaign work in PR with a fantastic piece in The Saturday Age. What makes the story is the revelation that the meals under $10 nearly didn’t work because of internal issues getting all stores to agree to the price cut. It’s unusual to see a brand admit publicly that there were internal challenges to be overcome, but that’s what makes the story. The fact that it all worked out in the end is strongly communicated and Coles comes across as having worked hard to deliver this value to its customers. It’s a great PR piece all round.

By: Selina Nisanyan

Selina Nisanyan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:02:34 +0000

Also currently on outdoor.

By: Simon Rush

Simon Rush — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:06:13 +0000

I’m looking forward to the one featuring fish….comedy gold!!

By: Zac Martin

Zac Martin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:53:57 +0000

Good article Tim.

With the amount of bullshit we talk about marketing and advertising, it’s nice to be grounded by a successful yet not at all creative campaign like this one. Big ups.

By: GTS

GTS — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:24:11 +0000

Unfortunately, this is not as genius or creative as one might think. Very similar campaigns (eg. a meal for 2 including a bottle of wine for £10) have been running in the UK for Marks & Spencer, Waitrose & Sainsbury’s for the past 12 months.

It is good execution – but not a new idea.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:03:06 +0000

But familys that need to do dinner for less than $10 are doing it already, and have lots of ways to do it,

Not necessarily, I think you’ll see a lot of mothers/fathers see the ad and think “wow, I never realised it’s that cheap to make Chicken Cacciatore, I’ll have to go in an check that out” and then when they get there they also notice the other weekly specials and might think that because they’ve got dinners worked out so cheaply that they can spend a little bit more on the more premium, higher margin product.s

By: Dicken Doe

Dicken Doe — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:34:51 +0000

Well, it is a bit more aggressive than their usual stuff, and nice to see Coles upping the stakes a bit.

But familys that need to do dinner for less than $10 are doing it already, and have lots of ways to do it, the (vast) majority of customers that are not that price sensitive will not be especially interested, and the opportunity to be meaningful to them has been lost.

It also sets Coles up, yet again, for a price war they cannot win against a much slicker and better organised competition with more buying power.

If I were working at Coles I would be trying to use my strengths, for instance they tend towards broader range which means they can meet more needs for more grocery combinations.

Tell you what though, nice to see something a bit different to the usual 10c off beans and two for ones carbonated drinks.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:20:48 +0000

There is no doubt that this is a great workmanlike execution of consumer insight of what the consumer is most likely to respond to in terms of activation message. The question is, is the consumer that is most likely to respond a reader of metro press or could a higher level of response be generated from a mixture of other platforms?

By: Adam Joseph

Adam Joseph — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:35:27 +0000

The recipe-based format is also a smart way for them to promote their private label ranges, such as You’ll Love Coles frozen peas and Coles $mart buy basmati rice. In fact, only 2 of the 5 recipes have a traditional FMCG brand in there – i.e. Ardmona tomatoes and Continental mix. And now I’m hungry …

By: Ellery

Ellery — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:14:52 +0000

Ad agencies can get so caught up in having good ‘creative’ for their ads that they can lose site of the goals of a campaign (and us client side marketers are guilty of the same when we hear the agency’s pitch). Although I don’t think grocery campaigns have every been particularly glamourours, it’s really good to see a company (Coles) recognising the challenges / underlying problem they are trying to solve for their customer, and going out and solving that problem.

Kudos to coles for this one.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:10:47 +0000

This is also the focus of this week’s catalogue, also this week’s catalogue is larger than normal – probably to grab attention in the midst of various catalogues delivered during the week.

Also, from what I’ve noticed is that when catalogues have, I guess you could call them “invocations” – i.e ‘stock up for summer’ or ‘have a fantastic easter with Coles’ – sales of those products usually increase.

Another notable thing is that in these ads, it is almost all Coles’ own brands being promoted.

I’m working tomorrow night, so I’ll have to see if sales of You’ll Love Coles frozen peas increase

By: Einstein

Einstein — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:11:17 +0000

And Tesco’s work is very similar to the M&S campaign, dinner for two, main, dessert and a bottle of wine for 10 Inglish pounds. 10 is clearly the new magic number.

By: Mr Corbett

Mr Corbett — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:00:26 +0000

Agree – and well done for highlighting it.
Glamorous and interactive – no. Effective and highly efficient – almost certainly.
It is probably the most read spread in the paper.