Coles Little Shop is one of the greatest retail marketing campaigns of all time
From organic reach to persuasive brand loyalty, the Coles Little Shop promotion ticks every single box on the marketer’s dream wish list, argues Algo Mas’ Julie Wrobel.
My 19-month-old twins are too young to care about Coles Little Shop, although we’ve still been caught up in the craze. So why is Little Shop one of the greatest retail marketing campaigns ever?
Wide market appeal
The campaign is aimed at children but let’s be honest, what parent doesn’t get a buzz from unwrapping a Little Shop packet to find a coveted mini Oak inside? So while our kids encourage us to shop at Coles, it’s an easy sell as we want to complete the set just as much as they do.
Hi Julie,
I agree, a genuinely brilliant idea from Coles.
A couple of further thoughts…
– I’d wager this was 100% supplier funded, so cost Coles nothing
– Brands were happy to pay for this brand exposure, so a win-win for both parties
The couple of incremental items into the baskets of mum and dads makes a huge difference at results time.
You sound like a brain dead consumer
I live in a one bedroom apartment in inner Sydney’s Surry Hills. The Little Shop products are just the right size for my kitchen. Please don’t discontinue them.
Genuine LOL at that comment.
Presume the author was unaware of the small matter of the single use plastic ban at the exact time, and the huge amount of negative publicity surrounding this promotion?
Should have been made from recycled plastic bags.
Oh stop that! It’s a win-win for everyone! … including the Indian kiddies. It’ll give ’em something fun to fish out as they skip along the beach in six months or so: https://nextshark-vxdsockgvw3ki.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/1-35-e1532697136207.jpg
Bravo to all concerned.
Yeah I stopped shopping at Coles or any place owned by Coles the day the Little Shop products came out. It’s beyond disingenuous to release these at the same time as withdrawing single-use plastic bags. I’d recommend the person who wrote this go check out the Australian documentary ‘Blue’ and then tell me they’re still super excited about these plastic toys.
Your kids definitely don’t know better but you should. I’m sure they will enjoy having more plastic in their oceans than fish though.
And those kids’ “pretend play” involves a miniature toy pretend bottle of bleach. What could go wrong? Well done to Coles, White King, and to parents like you. Little Sally must be so pleased.
good point!
Sales win.
https://mumbrella.com.au/white-king-claims-sales-spike-from-coles-mini-collectables-frenzy-540308
I’m sure Little Sally will be fine if mummy and daddy have a brain and keep it in a child proof cupboard and properly capped.
Welcome to capitalism,
Coles has played this exceptionally well. The rest of you whingers, take note – this is what commercial success looks like.
Do you complain about Lego being plastic too?
Except Lego has a proven long term use. I know people who still have their parents’ lego collections. These will go out of fashion in a matter of weeks.
This was done 4 years ago by New World supermarket in NZ and I’m pretty sure they got the idea from a supermarket in Europe who did it earlier. This idea doesn’t belong to Coles.
They did the same in a Swiss supermarket 4 or 5 years ago.
Also in South Africa 2 years ago with similar branding and some of the same products.
https://www.iloveza.com/blogs/wheres-daddy/checkers-little-shop-1
https://un.ga/case/little-shop/
The promotion is by a company called UNGA based in Amsterdam who license loyalty programs for a variety of retailers.
Woolworths were the first to bring this idea to Aus with their ‘Animal Cards’ collection and will no doubt be looking at their next ‘collectable’ program.
Promotion launched the same time Coles backflipped on their plastic bag ban. Coles copped an absolute hammering about creating even more single use plastic products. Totally damaged their brand. I along with many others no longer shop at Coles. But sure you keep spending that extra $2 on chocolate bars so you can unwrap a little toy. Natural selection at it’s finest.
Crap.
It damaged their brand with a vocal minority on social media, who have probably gone back to complaining about Trump by now.
Coles’ results speak for themselves.
Agreed – the only ‘noise’ I saw about this promotion was negative. I know I live in my inner west bubble, but this campaign is a foul thumbing of the nose to anyone who cares about the environment at all.
Correct, you do live in an inner-West bubble.
If you want the view of mainstream shoppers, take a look at…
– Social media (not Green Left Weekly, but you know, mums and dads)
– The huge swap meets
– The volume of consumer media coverage (no, not The Guardian)
– The prices being paid on ebay
– The results being attributed to this campaign by Coles (and Woolworths)
– The fact that they plan to run the promotion again
I’d hate to think how many of you work for agencies. You are so disconnected from both mainstream Australia and what drives success for your clients.
Speaking as an agency worker from the inner-west, and thank you for the stereotype – I’m glad we’re disconnected from mainstream Australia and have the environment at the forefront of our thinking. We’re more likely to drive our clients to ideas that have positive effects on society and the environment and not execute a hard plastic, viral campaign especially in the midst of a plastic bag catastrophe. It’s a little cringey to see people in the industry commending an existing idea that produced yet another large amount of absolute garbage the kids will get over in a couple of weeks.
Great, you keep up the great work driving clients to “ideas that have positive effects on society and the environment”.
The grown ups in the room will keep selling stuff.
I’m not from the Inner West, but am a parent. I along with many other parents I’ve spoken to are appalled and now refuse to shop at Coles. Not many of these are on social media either and hardly a minority. Perhaps you need to step out of your bubble and wake up to reality? Consumers don’t want plastic.
Dinosaurs*
I’m amazed they make tiny little plastic bags to carry them home in.
Oh wait. The do come in little plastic bags — silly me.
Is this real
I feel way better about my life after reading this, no matter how crap things were going I’ve never been so low as to get excited about a mini Oak.
Testify!
$500K for each supplier, including some other co-ops such as catalogue, aisle ends etc
and it’s coming back!
The power of this campaign is undeniable for all the reasons mentioned, however Coles can only take credit for licensing the idea – not coming up with it. Refer http://un.ga/ and http://vimeo.com/64385024
Ban the bag! Now truck in tonnes of tiny plastic trinkets
Bogans gonna bogan.
Tazos for mums.
Groundbreaking.
Really, greatest retail marketing campaign of all time? To me, this campaign seems crass and gimmicky compared to some of the successful campaigns Woolworths ran in conjunction with the Taronga Foundation several years ago (in which you collected endangered animal cards to put in an educational folder). Those campaigns were wildly (pun intended, kind of) successful and generated similar hype in terms of meet ups, Facebook groups etc. Apparently they boosted sales significantly. But they were also educational, interesting and had a valuable social responsibility message around conservation. And far, far less disposable plastic. That all added up to brand building for me – making me feel better about Woolworths. In contrast, Coles’ mini products just seem tacky.
Yeah I tried selling these on eBay however it was bullshit these are not valuable, also if are spending more just to get little shops whatever you can ask the people at coles “ look I am close to the amount “ and most will chuck you an extra coles mini shop, they have no real value to real collectors just a gimmick
I actually feel empathy for Julie here, who has undoubtedly realised her company ‘blog’ needed feeding and rushed out some words to fill the void.
There is, of course, no feasible reason as to why anyone could laud this campaign as anything but a trite recycled marketing initiative. The ‘reasoning’ above is naive at best, and lazy at worst.
But it was always supposed to be thus, throw away content in the half-hearted belief that saying ‘anything’ accounts to ‘something.’
The more interesting point is, of course, why would Mumbrella publish this filler?
A more pertinent question would be are 29 comments (maybe 30?) worth demolishing your brand equity for?
Mumbrella, it’s been great…
Good article Julie, you’re dead right – it’s marketing genius. Definitely the best marketing campaign this year.
To the naysayers #1 – Bag flip is over.
To the naysayers #2 – Who cares if Coles stole the idea! Most marketing ‘ideas’ are copied from somewhere.
If I worked for a FMCG brand I’d be pushing hard to get my product in to Coles Little Shop Version 2… which I imagine is already in the pipeworks?
It’s probably fair to say that this campaign, and any heralding of it, says everything that needs to be said about what is wrong with some parts of our industry.
This would have been ok in 1989. But now? Can’t we do better than pester power and meaningless single use plastic collectibles?
The negative aspect of this campaign far outweighs its ability to ‘drive sale’. Profit at all costs is not where our world is heading. We need to think much better than this.
“The negative aspect of this campaign far outweighs its ability to ‘drive sale’.”
According to who? You? I am tipping the shareholders, management, employees and shoppers of Coles all happen to disagree.
I personally prefer the Dan Murphy’s minis
The Little Shop was a great marketing tool, people I’ve been chatting too want another comeback of these cherished collectibles, me myself included for a 2nd Edition for example our home shopping healthier staples..MINI milk bread meat chicken more fruit/veg to encourage healthier eating. With people moaning about plastic make them bio friendly/recyclabe then?!
With every Mini health item collected at time of purchase or with a receipt later should have some sort of a discount for the same product in the next shop. The customer gets something too collect and in return receives something back. Coles still makes the sales customers still shop WIN WIN If this is a too over the top obsurd idea then I’m sorry.
I’ve worked in many supermarkets (30+) 20 years… it may work.
Regards Yvonne Foord
Having been dragged kicking and screaming to address the probem of single-use plastic bags being provided to shoppers they now promote even more useless plastic pollution for our children, landfill, oceans. How do you like your magnificent sea turtles when you’re holidaying at Lizard Is.? STUFFED WITH PLASTIC ?