Now I must start this post with saying I am actually a woolies boy, I've worked there, got the discount card and also got the credit card. So therefore my view of Coles may be a bit skewed.
However one thing that has been popping up on Facebook is 'Which you'll love coles item are you?'. What makes it more curious is that people are doing it and liking it. When prompted as to why the answer I got was you have to shop there to understand it. Seems shopping at Coles makes you part of some special club...
Whilst I am confused at the succesfulness of this quiz I must admit it is quite good for Coles. Once you get an item you identify with that item and I would think that in most cases you would pick up and have a look at yourself as a product. When you're raking in 4000 of these quizzes a month that's a pretty good investment for something that probably cost them nothing.
It's also an eye opener because it shows that for some people at least the value that they must get back for interracting with a brand isn't high at all.
FYI I'm you'll love coles milk apparently...
14 comments:
Haha! Wow it made it onto your blog...
Here I'll explain why I like the quiz. Me and my housemates shopped at Coles so often we noticed that some of the things we bought had really silly quotes (read: marketing so bad it's funny and therefore somehow good) on them "It's bright and lights up the whole room," says Damien the office worker for a light globe, or "They're crunchy and cook quickly just for me!" says Jeffrey the irrepressible boy child for a packet of frozen chips. It became a long-running joke in our household, and then to see a quiz about it on facebook, of all things, was just icing on the cake. Somebody actually went to the TROUBLE of not only getting all the stupid quotes for all these products BUT taking pictures of them and putting them in a quiz. It's just too much. It's hilarious, is what it is.
Will I buy more "you'll love coles" products from now on? I doubt it. It'll most likely be just like before - sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depending entirely on sales!
That actually puts it more in context. I must admit your love for it thoroughly confused me.
I think it would have been someone who works for Coles who did it though. The pictures and quotes are all a bit too correct for a random person to make it.
I think for people not already so amused with the brand it will lead to more though. I mean I didn't know there are quotes and if I ever find myself in coles again I may just pick them up to read.
That being said the people like you are the backbone of this. If you hadn't done it I wouldn't have been interested and it wouldn't have appeared on the side of facebook. Whilst you may not increase your sales you will improve others knowledge and also possibly their likelihood of purchase.
It's a very curiously clever campaign.
Although that is a worthy consideration, I don't think you have to work in Coles to make that quiz. All you have to do is be a little crazy, walk into a Coles Supermarket, pick up any "You'll love Coles" item, take a picture of it and note down the quote. There's tonnes of them in there so you can just browse the aisles and go crazy.
I'd personally thought the person who made it was someone like me and my housemates who thought it would be a really funny idea. Or! It could be a conspiracy and Coles has created this innocuous marketing campaign to fool us all.
But would it really make people buy this brand? The people who are doing the quiz are (mostly) people who already know about it, or people who think the idea is funny but the next time they go shopping they'll completely forget about it.
And anyone who knows or sees the brand instantly knows it for what it is (it's basically the Coles version of Home Brand) so no one's after it for quality. It looks average and for the most part, tastes average too. Hence why I only buy when there's a sale, if I'm really desperate for some food and I just don't have the money for quality food XD
I think it DOES intrigue people like you though :D People who study marketing. Yes, you will be the next one to buy a "You'll love Coles" item - you'll walk into Coles, find it in your basket in the checkout and scream cause you've succombed to their tricky marketing!
I do agree with the last point though. I have spread this quiz! But, I'm going to scapegoat here... I did it because Miki did it and it showed up on my feed, so...! *runs away*
Haha... I'm Soda water
I was so intrigued by this blog I actually went and did the quiz. Now, I'm a member of Coles Group as I work at Target... and I still shop at Safeway because its 50m closer. And its a little better set out.
@Mags: Actually I think the You'll love coles is actually to compete with Woolworths Select as opposed to homebrand. Or at least that's what I've been told. By that means it should contain basically all the stuff the branded stuff has just a little cheaper. That being said i don't scan coles a lot, I simply thought it was placed as a premium non-brand alternative.
Don't be worried about the spreading it though. Blame Facebook. I still do believe it would be a coles Marketing worker that made it. While you're amused by it do you really see yourself going to the effort to do something like this?
@Jono: Almost everyone I saw do this before me got soda water...At first I thought the quiz only had one result :P
Do you think that if you went into coles again you may look at the soda water or if with someone actually mention it and show them the silly quotes?
Is Woolies laid out that much better that it's worth not getting your discount?
Actually that makes sense! I've seen Woolworths Select, they probably are competing with them. It tastes like Home Brand quality, though (both of them do). And the packaging is simple and just looks... mediocre, I guess. The atmosphere around it tells my instincts it's homebrand!
I don't know if I would go to those lengths, actually. I've done some other pretty crazy stuff on a whim, like dressed up like a superhero and climbed through my bathroom window. But I acknowledge that it could certainly be a marketing campaign! I guess that, to me though it's still just funny XD I'm not geared to look at this analytically like you.
You'll love coles was actually introduced to cut brands in their supermarkets. SOmething like 33% were culled when it first came in I think. I don't think it's meant to actually taste like homebrand. That being said there is a chance it could be perception. A lot of people say bottled water tastes different and most of that comes down to perception.
I am geared to look at this stuff. It keeps me on the ball. Whilst it may be a bit sketchy over who made it I have to look at it with a marketing eye and I say it has a marketing look about it :P
Just for your information, Coles has like 3 or so lines of Coles branding. $martbuy (Home-Brand quality), YLC, Coles Farmland, etc.
They're not that bad. For example, I refuse to cook anything without Coles Farmland Dark Compound Chocolate Buttons, because I don't like any other cooking chocolate, and my food always comes out best with that chocoalte, for some reason. (Yes, the secret ingredient to my brownies is Coles Farmland Compound Chocoalte!)
Some things you can afford to skimp on, and get the same taste out of it, if not better. Others, maybe not. (I.e. I think twice about buying a YLC toaster, but have no qualms buying $martbuy butter for cooking.)
Sorry, I don't have much to say about the post itself, but just thought I'd butt in a bit about quality and stuffs. xD
Also, I can taste the difference between waters because of the different mineral contents. One time I was craving Evian water, specifically, because it has a higher calcium content and I was lacking calcium. (You know about my lacking vitamins/minerals and cravings, right? I didn't even realise Evian hada high calcium content, I was just craving the taste of Evian specifically...)
I won't argue things don't have different tastes,(I mean I'm sensitive to the tastes of WATER) but yes, I do think a lot of peoples' "taste" in things are skewed by perception. I.e. people thinking cheap-branded food = bad food (when I love Farmland compound chocolate).
I might have gotten more into the quiz if I still worked at Coles and shopped at Coles, though. Now I always shop at Safeway because of you. =/
Whelp now I'm getting out of my depth! I only know why I thought the quiz was funny and beyond that I can't really add much. I'll have to concede with your points Tannie 8D
About thinking "You'll love Coles" tastes like homebrand Lili, I guess it is personal taste but I grew up on cheap brands like Home Brand and Black & Gold cause my mum was a big money-saver, and so now of course I dislike anything that tastes like them. To me a lot of things from "You'll love Coles" remind me of such brands, but I could just be getting swayed by the packaging! I still like their light globes and etc. anyway :D Anything you don't have to eat! That doesn't mean I still don't buy Home Brand and You'll Love Coles and other such things when I'm almost broke... (which is often)
That said however! Home Brand make the best marshmallows. They recently changed but before that they were big and shaped like chocolate drops - nothing else beats their old marshmallows. They recently made them smaller though, which is much fail :(
Oh! And I love You'll love coles Rice cakes. Just had them for the first time then and they're like home brands': thick and plain so I can put butter on them.
:O
Maybe the marketing *is* working on me!
@Lili:Yeah I figured Coles would have the same plan as Woolworths with their brand scale wise.
I can't believe you can tell the difference between water. I swear I'm going to have to test that some day.
@Mags: I spose I kind of look into things with too much depth, makes it a bit hard to argue ^^;
That being said your experience with home brand is a bit out of the norm so you may not be the perfect example as you have a set prejudice against them.
I still think it would be interesting to see if you pick up one or two you'll love coles things a bit more regularly now. At this point it's more my blog advertising it than the poll, but it would still be interesting to gauge the effectiveness.
Haha it's cool! It's interesting! I'm learning a lot. But I've never studied any of this stuff so I really can't look at it outside my own experience or make any observations with analytical backing.
Now the quiz isn't as funny anymore though XD
Sorry for ruining your quiz ^^;
Well, I mean, I can't tell with slight differences, but when one water has about 100 times the calcium content of one water, or 100 times the silica content of another water... it's kind of... a distinct taste. (For me, at least)
Have you ever had "stale water"? Can you tell the difference between "normal water" and "stale water"? It's the slight differences.
Something I've also noted the past few times I've bought Evian, is that it tastes different in the big bottle than it does in the small bottle. I've developed the theory that you need to shake the bottle and evenly distribute the minerals, which is much easier in a small bottle. O.o;
Just FYI.
Can't believe we're... or I'm talking about water. O.o;
Oh, more on topic, maybe, though... I think YLC water tastes crap. Just putting it out there. xD
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