Woolies v Coles - Assessment comparing Australian supermarket leaders. PDF

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Assessment comparing Australian supermarket leaders....

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Do Coles and Woolworths use similar or different marketing communications strategies? Coles and Woolworths use similar marketing strategies to communicate to their consumers. Both Coles and Woolworths use various branding and promotion strategies through slogans and advertising low and appealing prices.

Coles and Woolworths advertise in very similar ways to compete effectively in ways such as how they brand and promote their products, such as Coles with their “Down, down, the prices are down”. This marketing scheme was purely based off aggressively lowering prices of important everyday goods, such as milk, bread, coffee, sugar etc. This campaign resulted in a huge increase of sales of all diversified products, however Coles received a lot of backlash as it prolonged the expected time length. As a result of Coles huge success through this marketing campaign, Woolworths had to respond in order to compete with Coles. Woolworths therefore initiated their “Cheap cheap” marketing campaign, which was extremely similar to Coles’ “down down”. The similarities are not hard to identify, firstly the slogan itself. Both slogans consist of two words repeating themselves, emphasizing that prices are lower. In both advertisements, the words are repeated in catchy melodies repeatedly, however the what the campaign was centralized around was what was most similar. Both Coles and Woolworths dropped the prices of the same range of necessary household products, and used extremely similar marketing strategies to do so, showing how alike both companies use these strategies. Not only in their price related marketing strategies are Coles and Woolworths alike, but also in their company’s slogans and other ways in which they use to communicate themselves to consumers. Woolworths state that their goal is “to have Customers put 1st across all brands”. Similarly, Coles state that their goal is “to give the people of Australia a shop they trust, delivering quality, service and value.” Both philosophies revolve around the idea of customers being the most important stakeholder to either company, in order to communicate themselves as a selfless company who prioritize their respective communities over their profits, regardless of whether they reflect this in their actions. Woolworths and Coles used to both have a slogan under their logo, which is used nearly always to accompany the brand, unless on very small packaging, etc. However recently Coles has isolated their logo, and used their slogan separately, while Woolworths still has theirs under. Despite both using their slogans in a very similar way, the overall messages in the slogans are completely different. Coles’ slogan is “Down Down the Prices are Down” since 2010, due to the extremely successful marketing campaign in 2009, while Woolworths use “Fresh Food People”, and have since 1987, despite little tweaks in the logo over the years. Both Slogans appeal to consumers, however in a very different way. Coles uses their slogan more aggressively, as they lower their prices making it difficult for Woolworths to compete while still making a profit. The lowering of these prices also appeals more to consumers, as they would be paying a lot less for necessary products. Woolworths on the other hand has a less aggressive slogan, as their slogan as oppose to targeting price, target the quality of the goods which they deliver. The term “fresh” associates their products as being recently obtained and of a high quality, appealing their customers as the caliber of good being purchased is high. Despite appealing to customers in a different way, the way Woolworths

and Coles use their respective slogans are very similar in the way they communicate to their consumers. Therefore, Coles and Woolworths are evidently very similar in their strategies to not only promote themselves, but to also communicate their messages to the marketplace. They take mostly an advertising approach as oppose to public relations or personal selling, to reach an optimal audience. Despite some differences in which they perceive themselves to the public, it cannot be denied that the way in which they promote themselves in their slogans, marketing campaigns, overall company goals and other elements of their marketing strategies. Consequently, the strategies Coles and Woolworths use to communicate themselves in their marketing are very indifferent. Garlin, F, Hayek, J, Mariyani-Squire, E, Spanjaard, M, 2017, “Enterprise and Innovation Markets Custom for Western Sydney”, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, Milton, QLD. Woolworths Limited, 2017, “Our Approach: Strategy and Objectives – Woolworths Group”, Accessed 28 April 2017, . Coles Supermarkets Australia, 2015, “About Coles: Our History”, Accessed 28 April 2017, . Canning, S, 2008, “How the simplicity of Coles’ Down Down and Everyday strategy changed price perceptions”, Mumbrella, 18 February 2017, Accessed 28 April 2017, . Keating, E, 2007, “Supermarket Monsters: Seven insights into how Coles and Woolworths came to dominate Australian groceries”, Smartcompany, 14 September 2015, Accessed 28 April 2017, ....