Coles, please stop dumbing us down, down

Coles marketing strategies aren’t aimed too much at lifetime loyalty consumers, majority of their advertising is aimed at the 10% of Australia who are ‘swing shoppers’ they are not brand loyal, they shop based on price and convenience (and little toys it would seem)

Coles run 100s of campaigns a year, this was just a one off absolute banger that brought some joy and fun to literally all of Australia regardless of gender, race, age, socioeconomic status.

Bit of a rough article just because they don’t spend all of their budgets trying to fix Australia’s issues with domestic violence, poverty and the environment.

Does EVERYTHING have to be a gender issue. There are enough genuine gender issues without manufacturing Coles bloody toys into one aren’t there? I get that this is your business but bit come on . Classic case of “when all you have is a hammer…”

The reason they ran it (even with extremely poor timing), is that a similar campaign was run somewhere in Europe and made a significant amount of $$ for the grocery retailer. It was the bottom line, not any type of Corporate Social Responsibility that they considered.

Agree with the green-washing description. Pretending-to-care is part of the corporate condition.

I’m sick of hearing the bleating about Coles being some kind of environmental vandal because they produced a range of plastic shop figures. I’m sure there are many companies who are far worse in terms of damaging the environment. As for the obligatory gender references, spare me.

I don’t think the article was ‘a bit rough’ at all. I think it was only a little of what Coles deserved for adding more rubbish to the planet. Definitely profit above anything else and I wouldn’t shop there if you paid me. I was horrified to see some younger women on Instagram freaking out with joy over the Little Shop.What are they teaching their children?

Hey Fun Police, give us a spell..

This is a more accurate description of Cole’s poor marketing strategies, than the story last week about how great mini plastic products are and how the author was buying extra chocolate bars to get more of them. Small things do amuse small minds.

Dear Bec,
According to your website the following brands named below are listed as your clients.
So I’d be interested to know…,
Have you told your Chatswood Chase and Northland they’re contributing to the environmental vandalism because their tenants use plastic bags?
Have you told your fashion clients you won’t sell any product made from synthetics because that’s environmental vandalism?
Have you told Handee you’ll stop advertising Handee until they stop wrapping their paper towels in plastic?
I don’t know what’s more irritating – your naivety, your self-serving grandstanding, or your shameless inconsistency.

I’ve read this twaddle several times and I still don’t know what she’s banging on about. When your biggest competitor acknowledges publicly that you absolutely nailed it, I’d say job well done.

File under ‘incoherent and contradictory ideology-driven ranting’.

It’s a niave rant about marketing. Makes me think you’ve missed the whole point of what we do every day – build transactions with value. You’re knocking both.

Was a clever campaign, just ironic that they did at the same time as their awful handling of the plastic bag issue.

Their strategy has always been multiple campaigns. Though I’m not sure they could dumb down any more than ‘Down Down’.

Dear Ms.Brisdeson,
Have you ever considered the back-flipping on plastic bags might’ve been welcomed by grocery shoppers and had a positive effect on Coles sales?
What you and the commentariat read as ‘look how unprofessional Coles are with their plastic bag back-flip – they obviously don’t know what they’re doing’, the vast majority of shoppers read as ‘Cool! Coles still have free plastic bags!’
For proof of the above refer to Woolworths’ press releases highlighting
a] Coles Little Shop and
b] Coles still offering free plastic bags as the principal reasons for WW’s drop in sales.

Big company with major PR issue and declining market share under pressure from all sides launches brave campaign that is huge, unqualified success on all levels.

Marketing Expert launches left field rambling tirade about something to do with the environment, entirely devoid of any facts or substantive information whatsoever, entirely based on her own point of view about what shoppers want, implying somehow Coles got it wrong.

If that’s not a parable for the travails of the advertising industry, I don’t know what is.

Surely the whole point of this promo was to lift sales to make Coles’s revenue figures look healthier prior to Wesfarmers proposed de-merger of the brand later this year? Pretty sure investment banks and investors will be looking at hard facts like sales and revenue rather than customer lifetime loyalty metrics – irrespective of how important any of us in marketing may feel about such things. It’s the game Coles are playing right now and it frustrates me that so many of us don’t appreciate the real worlds our clients compete in. I think no.1 on Wesfarmers’s list of ‘things that create a better future’ was ‘get Coles return on capital back up above 10% and flog it off so….’

“Marketing is an opportunity to engage and invite our audience to join in legitimate positive feelings and shared values with our brands in acts of longtermism”

Ok, lets flip your argument then. Where’s your research that shows Coles shoppers want to share their legitimate feelings and shared values with them? Please. The campaign clearly worked.