Woolworths steps up ‘Cheap Cheap’ price-based messaging in new ad

Looking forward to some “Cheep Cheap Tweets?”

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This jingle is BEYOND irritating – if that’s what they were going for, then job well done!

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Cheap, cheap, prices are cheap dang-nang-nang-nang

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They managed to say ‘cheap’ 18 times in a 30 second ad.

Frequency of messaging, hey?

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If this isn’t a copy of Coles’s “Down Down” ads I don’t know what is.

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Down Down / Cheap Cheap…
Seriously Woolworths? Look, it’s not the worst idea ever but mimicking/copying the message of a rival is not how I think Woolies should attack things. In my opinion they are creating a rod for their own backs and should’e stuck with the ‘Red Spot Special’ as a point of difference for their major ‘loss leader’ offerings – all while continuing to focus on beating their competition on fresh, quality proteins and fruit/veg.

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Ted Horton is the Steve Jobs of Australian grocery advertising.

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a battle on price is a race to the bottom of the barrel is it not?

I would have thought other factors such as brand variety, product variety and quality, customer service, freshness and convenience would be better levers to pull than price.

Very surprised they are trying to compete on the basis of price (ie Aldi territory)

Also, not sure the word “cheap” is the right message to be sending to customers. This word is normally associated with sub standard quality ie 2 dollar shop.

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Have a look who the new Woolworths CMO is – it’ll make a lot of sense.

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How disappointing that a new campaign from one of Australia’s biggest brands is saying…wait for it…”we’ve got low prices”. What a surprise!

What a downright disappointment, more like. Have you really got nothing else to tempt me with? Is there no other territory you can play in? Is there no desire to be better on some other measure than price?

What a waste of brand budget. Zzz.

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So Aldi are award winning and Woolworths are now cheap – I”m confused.

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I give it 6 months.

Cheap at the price when you consider it probably took no more than 5 minutes to be ‘inspired’ by the Coles equivalent.

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seriously, this ad made me feel sick. truly shocking

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“From Monday to Sunday all through the store”….
Don’t the catalogues run Wednesday to Tuesday?

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My experience is the exact opposite whenever I shop at Woolworths.

“F*** me that’s expensive!”

It will be worth it though if those little birds are hanging around.

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this is so traj that new CMO just ripped off the down down campaign… and aren’t those birds from the ‘birds eye’ brand?! how many brands can be ripped off in a 30sec. TVC?!

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Woolies stuffed themselves in retail marketing the day they didn’t appoint Greg Foran as their CEO. Greg was quickly snapped up to run Wal Mart in China and Wal Mart liked what he did there so much they made him head of Wal Mart in the US.

You think this campaign and Woolies’ marketing is crap? This is just the start.

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Eurgh. This is horrid. Truly sickening.

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@JohnW You are absolutely right. Greg was my client when I had a regional planning job. He was Marketing Manager of Woolworths NZ (owned by Dairy Farm Hong Kong). I recall complimenting him on something and he waved it away saying he was just a humble grocer. Yeah, right. He didn’t really fit at Woolworths, being cursed with both ability and a mind of his own. Walmart may well buy Woolworths one day and I would pay lots to watch Greg clean out the store.

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Can you believe this? That CMO saw the sucess of the Down Down campaign when he was in a senior position at Coles, now he’s replicating it and ripping it off… “cheap cheap” v. “down down”… hmmm funny that. This is only the beginning of rip offs and cheap imitations. How about a the recent brand campaign and its throw back to the 80’s “Fresh food people”?! That place does a brand re-launch twice yearly, that’s as often as the CMO changes guard… T-R-A-G-I-C

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I never, ever thought I’d say this…I’d prefer yet another barrage of Status Quo and down down over this any day.

Horribly irritating, not just irritating like the big red hand.

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Robyn, Lexi,

just fyi, I believe this is the same CMO responsible for the Down Down campaign for Coles

Woolies liked it so much, they bought the marketer!

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I so loved Burnetts.Todd was quite unlike any other CEO in the business.
Andy was your classic ECD,uber cool,big on attitude with a swagger that was well deserved.
The work was worked class.
Then along comes Woolworths and the creative curse.
These bastards will ruin you LB.
The work already diminishing some great reputations.
I know you can’t dump ’em but Todd and particularly Andy-distance yourself from them.

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Of course this commercial will cop a bit of bagging, anything posted on Mumbrella or CB only get bitchy comments. But in support of this campaign I think the Australian public wants to save money, hell it’s so expensive living here if you tell me I can get something cheap then I’ll shop there.
Yes they are similar to Coles down down but take a look at some of those Coles spots on YouTube to refresh your memory and you’ll wish they stuck that big red finger where the sun don’t shine.
I’ve worked on this account and other big retail accounts and know how they roll. I’m sure the ads were changed a dozen times at the last minute and rushed out the door before the agency were finished. But I think they’ll hit the target and my kids enjoyed pointing them out in store.
So good job, simple and memorable in what is probably the toughest advertising challenge in the country.

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This is what we get paid to do.
To sell product and retail is where it hits the road.

There is a big difference between winning awards in obscure categories with vending machines and the like and the work you put out for your largest clients.

I’d suggest concentrating on what will make you famous in the publics eye.

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Token ‘ethic’ inserted in this TV ad, well done Woolies #diversity

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@ If it’s cheap I’ll buy it. Agree. These ads will work. Too many artists on Mumbrella who don’t understand marketing… It’s actually about MAKING MONEY. And they’ve brought back Fresh Food People” with the sting! A great, memorable brand asset.

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What’s next… a rip off of “Love Fresh” circa 2001?!

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Cheap cheap, alright, as long as you don’t live in the more ‘affluent’ areas of Sydney. I discovered that Woolworths Bondi Junction had many of its bigger-ticket grocery items priced several dollars higher than other stores, a fact I only became aware of once I moved out of the area and started shopping at a Woolies on the south coast! What a wake-up call! Very suspicious ever since about grocery pricing. And I do so many more trips to Aldi these days: realising that they are ‘just like brands, only cheaper’ (brilliant marketing line, by the way) is actually true and so many items are the same if not better than Coles and Woolies stuff.

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Its a little disappointing that they used such an unimaginative and derivative promotion for an awareness campaign (its to advertise price reductions in a few key lines), where you can do literally anything. The birds are OK, but couldn’t they have had a more memorable jingle ?

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When i drop $300 a week at the shops to feed 4 kids and myself, im not screaming Cheap Cheap – im screaming a profainty. Woolworths and Coles contradict themselves and then have the nerve to ask me to serve myself.

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Cheap my a**
Woolies and Coles does these 85c hook items to get you in, no one buys white bread anymore…. I do 90% of my shopping at Aldi now

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It’s convenient that Coles recently got banned from advertising their “freshly baked” bread (for good reason, their conduct was sketchy at best).

In terms of Cheep Cheap or Down Down, I think Coles win as they had the idea first and executed more expertly (in my opinion). For clarity, I don’t particularly ‘like’ down down but it sure is catchy…

I think the reason shoppers choose Coles or Woolies goes beyond the price of staples so this seeming copy (or at least similar) strategy to Coles is an uncreative attempt to differentiate two chains that essentially deal in commodities.

So in summary, advertise bread for 5 cents or 85 cents, I still won’t be there – there’s more to choice than just price and I will be interested to see where their strategy goes from here.

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