Woolworths pulls ‘Fresh in our memory’ website after being accused of exploiting Anzac legacy
Supermarket giant Woolworths has pulled down a website called ‘Fresh in our memories’ which was the centre of its major Anzac Day marketing push after being accused of exploiting the events of Gallipoli for profit.
The name of the site was a play on the supermarket’s tagline ‘Fresh food people’, and allowed users to generate Facebook cover photos and profile pictures which feature the words ‘Fresh in our memory’ and the company’s logo.
Woolworths tonight said it “regretted” that the site caused offence and confirmed it has taken it down.
Ten newsreader Sandra Sully and Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons are among those who have taken to social media accusing the supermarket of “making puns” out of the Anzac legacy and cashing in on Anzac Day.
Among imagery made available on the site is a Facebook profile cover photo users can download featuring a digger carrying a dead comrade through the battlefield emblazoned with the words “Lest we forget” and featuring the Woolworths logo and a link to the website.
Woolworths is also a principal sponsor of the Camp Gallipoli events taking place across the country to mark Anzac Day.
In March the supermarket added experiential agency Carrspace to its roster to handle its activation around the event and to create the Fresh in our memories website. Overnight the agency has pulled the press release it circulated on the win from its website and deleted its Twitter account.
The supermarket said in a statement tonight: “The Fresh in Our Memories website has been taken down this evening. The site was developed to give our staff and customers a place to put their stories to mark the Centenary of ANZAC.
“We regret that our branding on the picture generator has caused offence, this was clearly never our intention. Like many heritage Australian companies, we were marking our respect for ANZAC and our veterans.
“We continue to be proud supporters of the RSL and Camp Gallipoli in this important year and look forward to working with them into the future.”
In an earlier statement to Buzzfeed Woolworths had defended the ploy stating: “As an Australian company since our creation more than 90 years ago, we are very happy to support our diggers.
“Like all Australians, we pay our respects to service people past and present and it’s appropriate that to do that with a small logo on the site.”
Other brands are also being called out for Anzac-based marketing on a Tumblr called Poppies for Profit including sports teams, News Corp, Ancestry.com.au and Target.
Alex Hayes
Some of the social media feedback:
I find @Woolworths Anzac Day advertising/slogans to be insulting to Australian Diggers. pic.twitter.com/QDBd7ZIgGY
— Daniel Eade (@DanielEade) April 14, 2015
#freshinourmemories now offline. Popular rebellion against Woolworths hijacking Anzac Day for marketing. Social media fail of the year
— Chris Keall (@ChrisKeall) April 14, 2015
Some users have also started adding inappropriate images of their own to the mem generator, including one who used a picture of Woolworths chief marketing officer Tony Philips:
RIP Tony Phillips, Chief Marketing Officer at Woolworths. @mumbrella pic.twitter.com/sPLQPumDvh — Tom Reynolds (@thomasrdotorg) April 14, 2015
Diggers digging trenches while singing Down Down, Deeper and Down.
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such a shame 🙁
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Cheap Cheap Dumb Dumb
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“‘Fresh in our Memories’ is not a marketing campaign,” Woolworths said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201.....on/6392848
Talk about digging yourself deeper…
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Lest we forget… two for one on biscuits.
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“The man carrying his comrade was identified in the 1920s as Lance Corporal C S Elliott, C Company, 2nd Battalion and has also been identified as 913 Private Frederick John Schenscher, 27th Battalion, who was awarded a DCM for rescuing wounded in France in 1917. ”
A photograph by Ernest Brooks in 1915, Dardanelles. The Digger LC C.S. (Bull) Elliott is carrying his comrade is a *wounded* Pvt F.J Schensher. Charles Bean notes this image was staged.
source: AWM H10363
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correction: LC C.S. Elliott not to be confused with Cpl Leslie (Bull) Allen AWM 015515 ~ https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/015515/
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The poster with the Digger’s face was still up in Northbridge Woolies tonight. I didn’t notice the “Fresh” link or the logo until Mumbrella pointed them out, though. What struck me was the fine detail of the 100-year-old photograph.
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“Fresh” in our memories – ugh. What were they thinking. Totally unnecessary and pretty sickening. What’s next – Woolies shows show how its tomatoes are as fresh as a WWI digger’s corpse?
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At the going down of the site and in the morning, we will remember them. Idiots.
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Yep, they all fought and died so you could sell fucking carrots. Either the people at Woolworths don’t understand what advertising is and are epically incompetent, or they do understand but don’t mind being deliberately exploitative. Neither position is defensible.
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Leo Burnett created this?
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hmmmm
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What a cheap and painfully tasteless campaign created by talentless hacks. And it probably cost tens of thousands to produce. *sigh*
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What is it about Australia and sensationalism? ANZAC Day has been hijacked by corporates; Woolies this is really awful, however surely everyone knows that the ‘not so good’ people at Woolies are low lives. (I am surprised they havent got an ANZAC themed pokie machine…) Pot calling the kettle black too. ‘Fresh’. Their apples are month, upon months old: don’t get me started there.
The other ‘sell out’ is the whole two up = p1ss up, which again, Woolies loves; they sell the grog.
Woooies owns ANZAC Day and we let them.
This stunt is shameful and it would be good to see people resign and certainly publicly apologise.
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Sainsburys in the UK had a similar PR disaster with their xmas campaign last year tapping into WW1. It doesn’t take a rocket science to work out that this was going to end the same way
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I’m reminded of a comment I saw somewhere on the recent queensland greens/vaccines issue – you can’t delete stupid. The fact that this made it all the way through various levels of approval and was actually created – staggering!
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Westpac and News Corp should be pinged as well.
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Anzac Day is just a day for drunks fights and gamblers. Not a nice day to be on the roads. Better if Coles and Wollies etc were able to open and may be a few less drunks about. A day to Celebrate war.
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A quick whois lookup suggests this was made by agency Carrspace…
http://carrspace.com.au/
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What has Woolworths become?They used to get Australians almost better than anyone.
Remember the community work they used to do for the farmers?That had a connection with the brand.
This is just a disgusting,exploitive bolt on.
Hang your heads in shame.That means you too Burnetts.
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An article I wrote last year on exactly the topic! Please have a read.
http://smart.com.au/news/2014/.....anzac_day/
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WOW is struggling and this sure isn’t helping. Bad taste.
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Whilst this is at the very tasteless end of the scale, there are plenty of brands (VB etc) cashing in on an association with ANZAC Day. If you spend more money telling people you support ANZAC Day (media/production etc) than actually writing a cheque and supporting ANZAC Day/RSL – you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
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Never read so much tosh in my life, as on Carrspace’s CD’s profile page.
http://carrspace.com.au/tyson-.....-director/
Tyson pilots Carrspace with his unique and inspired vision. With formal training in Architecture and Fashion, and expertise in Spatial Psychology, Trend Forecasting, Brand Environment Design and Consumer Experiential Marketing, every project with Tyson’s direction is multi-sensory, multi-dimensional and wholly engaging.
Constructed on distilled brand architecture and unique medium-mixes that dependably align with the client’s desired outcomes, Tyson’s approach to experiential ensures a brand’s personality is present at every touch point of the executed solution. Tyson has designed and produced experiences for Australia’s best design agencies first as a freelancer and now as Creative Director at Carrspace.
For Tyson, it’s all about creating the “light-bulb” moment for the audience – the moment that means the audience walks away saying ‘I understand, I get it now.’ Under his direction, Carrspace’s experiential solutions deliver brand messages that delve beyond the surface of a brand, to the core of the brand’s truth and to switch on that bulb.
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@Sue – I’m guessing you’re German? You’re certainly not Australian.
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I wonder what the experiential piece would have been?
A battle re enactment in fed sq using peas for bullets and spuds for hand grenades, fresh polpa for blood?
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http://www.aktifmag.com/anzac-.....hting-for/
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“SHAME SHAME SHAAAME ON WOOLWORTHS DISGUSTING HOW IMMORAL OF YOU”
*continues shopping at woolworths
pathetic online feels brigades
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My old man was in the Battle of Britain, got an MBE. My uncle was a Rat of Tobruk and then went on the Kokoda Track. Both were fortunate enough to return home.But neither man was the same when they did. They never discussed what they saw and what they did in the war ,unless it was with other diggers at the RSL on Anzac Day.
The fact is that they are no longer here to represent themselves.Their direct families ie sons and, daughters like myself are also now old. My son is 16 he knows about his grandfather and great uncle. But not one of his friends would have the faintest idea what ANZAC is all about.
The team that put this together clearly have no reference point and that is perhaps understandable .As unfortunate as it seems the real meaning of Anzac is lost to current generations and has passed with those who fought and those who continue to fight for this country
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> … after being accused of exploiting the events of Gallipoli for profit.
Nope. Try: “…after exploiting the events of Gallipoli for profit.”.
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And I thought “Cheap Cheap” was a strategic blunder…
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Always good to have another case study for SM failures
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It’s a “cheap cheap” version of Sainsbury’s christmas advert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM
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It failed because clients are so busy eeking out every cent and appealing to the lowest common denominator, that a whole bullshit industry has sprung up to pander to their stupidity. Experiential is wank speak for marketing and PR (but we’ll make ads cheap too!).
Woolies are clearly dickheads. It’s their responsibility, they asked for it and approved it.
Get the f**k out of creative you overpaid fools. If you’re going to insult the market with the silly work from Leo’s then don’t expect to be embraced when you piously exploit death and misery with your logo.
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Memo All Coles Marketing Staff
We’ve pulled the plug on the “Little Red Poppies” promo – all merch is to be destroyed immediately. If anyone asks about it, say it never happened.
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No that ad was not created by Leo Burnett and Tony Phillips had nothing to do with it. Good intention, bad execution.
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After listening to comments all morning, I find it a bit hard to understand all the fuss. I don’t think the Woolworth’s logo is THAT intrusive. Other merchandise sellers are more blatant. I thought ANZAC 2015 would end up filled with crass commercialism.
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Seriously…. did they do no testing of this message prior to going live?? Surely one good focus group with consumers would have nipped this in the butt before we had to be insulted by it.
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If anything despite the issues around appropriateness and crassness, it shows how pathetic the agency and perhaps also Woolies were in ensuring they had buy-in from all stakeholders – which clearly has been demonstrated that they did not. Marketing and Project Management 101 Folks – keep all stakeholders in the loop and get permissions signed off before launch not after the fact. As that only leads said campaign to blow up in your face!
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Carrcrash, bahahaha!
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For Tyson, it’s all about creating the “light-bulb” moment for the audience – the moment that means the audience walks away saying ‘I understand, I get it now.’ Under his direction, Carrspace’s experiential solutions deliver brand messages that delve beyond the surface of a brand, to the core of the brand’s truth and to switch on that bulb.
Thanks Tyson, I sure as hell “get it”. Thanks to you, I now have seen “beyond” (below??) the surface to this brand’s core truth…..Woollies, the duopoly grocer, is a cheap, nasty, exploitative corporation that has no sense of decency, appropriateness or taste.
Yep, got it. Lightbulb.
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How dare they try and make a profit over something some hold to be sacred – almost like it’s Easter or an Xmas sale or something.
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This was not a bad idea, it just may have been executed poorly. Can I suggest you put the site back up but make it an education site where student can share the stories of their ancestors, photos or even work they have done at school about the ANZACs. In this year so many schools will be studying the ANZACs so it make good sense to give those students a place to share their work. This could be a win win situation.
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Buy somewhere else.
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As someone who used to work for a certain business that woolies offloaded for a price similar to the amount of money they lose on Masters every 2-4 weeks, seeing the sheer arrogance of the execs in the grocery division at the national conference year and year out ensures that I’m never surprised at the shit they manage to sign off on and think is great – arguably a business that is so full of itself that it still seems to be in denial that Coles has outstripped its growth for so long.
Another example of this arrogance in action was the campaign last year that they employ x amount of young Australians daily, with an almost passive aggressive tone that we should be thankful that they exist! Won’t be the last campaign they release which oozes arrogance.
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No. 25 (Carrcrash) nailed it by providing a description of Tyson’s magical powers. Absolute waffle. Why don’t they just cut to the chase and say; Tyson is trying his hardest to find new ways for our client to wrest a buck from a schmuck?! Spare us the visionary super-powers & the light bulbs!! I can’t take anymore of that s**t!
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I don’t understand how the 20 something year old Woolworth managers weren’t mature enough to understand!
Maybe be all those less fresh employees shouldn’t have been moved on years ago!
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Manly West Woolworths still have their “fresh in our minds” poster blatently up on their window. Still trying to gouge people for $2 for miniature photos which they then shove on the wall (if they feel like it). However, why am I not surprised. If it’s not Anzac Day then it’s Easter for Xmas or just another stupid raffle to extract more $$$ from customers who are already paying through the nose for their groceries. Aaargh!!!
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I’d love to have a beer with Tyson, whoever he is.
But if the discussion is anything like his profile description, I ‘d have to get hammered.
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Bloody hell. You lot really like putting the boot in from your lofty perches of sanctimony.
How about some compassion? Or, as my mum would have it:, “if you’ve nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.
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