COLES CELEBRATES VALUE THE AUSTRALIAN WAY IN NEW CHRISTMAS CAMPAIGN VIA DDB AUSTRALIA AND BIG RED
With one million more Australians expected to spend Christmas at home this year, Coles, via DDB Australia and Big Red, is paying tribute to the diversity of the nation’s Christmas celebrations and the generosity of Aussies serving up festive food experiences across the country.
Directed by Justin Kurzel, this seasonal extension of Coles’ ‘Value the Australian way’ brand campaign continues to reflect the country’s renewed appreciation for home-cooked meals with family and friends, uncovered by Coles’ earlier Kitchen Census Report surveying 5500 Australians. From a backyard BBQ to a picnic on the beach, the 60-second spot showcases true Australian values and the variety of ways in which we come together for Christmas.
The multi-channel campaign will continue with 30-second and 15-second TVCs produced by creative agency Big Red highlighting Coles’ unique and easy to prepare Christmas range, as well as showing how Coles is lowering the cost of Christmas entertaining.
Coles Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Ronson said that after a challenging year for many Australians, Coles is determined to make festive entertaining fun and easy this year so customers can enjoy their time with family and loved ones.
Says Ronson: “Our Christmas campaign perfectly encapsulates our new brand positioning, Value the Australian Way, for the holiday season showcasing what we’re looking forward to most this Christmas; the small moments of connection with our loved ones.
“We are so inspired by our customers and this Christmas we want to pay tribute to them. Our campaign is all about the special moments that are created between family and friends when they come together to share food. These moments are what make Christmas Day and the whole holiday season so special for everyone and Coles is proud to help make these magical moments easier and more affordable for all Australians.”
DDB Australia Chief Creative Officer Ben Welsh said the latest campaign for Coles builds on the brand launch by shifting focus to the little things that family and friends do when they get together over Christmas time.
Says Welsh: “It’s no secret that the impact of COVID-19 has made it harder to read the sentiment of the nation and reflect the right tone, but by focusing on the simple moments that bring us together we touched on something we are all craving this Christmas, and that Coles delivers every day for its customers.”
The Christmas campaign is set to a reimagining of ‘Feel Like Going Back Home,’ best known from the hit Australian musical Bran Nue Dae, recorded especially for this campaign as a collaboration between Missy Higgins, Dingo Spender and the lead singer of Yothu Yindi, Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu. The original track was written by Stephen Pigram of popular Broome Indigenous artists The Pigram Brothers, featuring on their 1997 album Saltwater Country.
The same soundtrack was used in Coles’ recent brand campaign introducing its new positioning, Value the Australian way.
Creative: DDB Australia
Retail creative agency: Big Red
PR agency: Mango Communications
Media agency: OMD
Production Company: Revolver/Will O’Rourke
Editing: The Editors
Post-Production: Heckler
Music Supervision: Level Two
Audio Post: Sonar Music
Casting: Citizen Jane
Coles:
Lisa Ronson – Chief Marketing Officer
Michael Laxton – GM, Brand, Digital & Design
Kate Bailey – GM, Media, Sponsorships & Events
Bianca Mundy – Head of Brand & Content
Patrick Breen – Senior Marketing Manager
Jess Mitchell – Marketing Manager
Sally Mann – Media Manager
Geoff Turner – Head of Group Marketing Research and Insights
Martine Alpins – National Media and Communications Manager
28 Comments
Makes me feel dizzy
Why didn’t you re run last year’s commercial and change the music & V/O – would have saved heaps of money, as this is really average.
Also use a tripod next time.
Just a bunch of average Aussies in their million dollar mansions.
So they left Big Red to go to DDB for big brand work like this.
If I were the Big Red guys I would be very upset.
Who are they talking to?It all looks like pages out of Gourmet Traveller.
I love this new Woolies ad. Would never have moved away from ‘fresh food people’ though.
Clunk, clunk, clunk*
That end line is very laboured.
(*sung in style of Click go the Shears, another great Australian cliche)
And why did Coles suddenly become an aspirational brand?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when DDB ran Ted through the ‘creative’.
Anyone else over that boofhead Curtis Stone?
Where is the branding? With the amount of time the Insights team spend with the EBI, they know better than to forget the first rule of advertising… why spend all this money and risk misattribution for your biggest competitor?
Yep, all it takes is some branded bags or product nice and visible or something early in the ad
Really is this the best they can do. Looks like a ripomatic.
No branding and the clunkiest line in retail – this is the Xmas Turkey.
Why does Coles have to make shit work?
Sainsbury’s doesn’t
Tesco Doesn’t
Aldi Doesn’t
Strange.
I often wonder what the script looks like for this sort of advertising. How do you describe it to your creative director? What do you say to the client? Do you show a mood board or a video with lots of cliches from other ads? Please help me to understand how this sort of work – which appears time and again for various brands – gets approved and produced. Surely in the absence of any sort of actual advertising idea that can be described, it’s a feat of pure salesmanship.
As the script is presented, every nuance is exaggerated; the cheffy girl is presented as a unique product of masterchef culture – perhaps even a modern archetype, the dog on the dining table – a modern member of the new Aussie family. The phrase “Iconic Australian imagery” is used generously. Maybe even “modern iconic”. Coles is speaking to a new Australia. And so unarguable insights are used to bolster common cliches. Visceral excitement from seemingly accomplished talent feeds the desperate enthusiasm of subpar brands to create an exploit that we now witness.
Lol. Anybody else?
Clearly not amazing, but not shit either. Nonna putting Vegemite into her not-bolognese-by-a-long-shot is a genuine insight. Having 4 litres of cream in there certainly is not.
get a fucking grip champion. did you honestly click on this article expecting to see anything but a food prep montage? it’s Coles for fuck’s sake. pull your head out you peanut.
Is this really a representation of contemporary Australia?
I don’t think so Coles.
Ooooh…who works for DDB then?
Unsurprisingly this is the same pedestrian montage-y stuff that gets trundled-out every year from Woollies and Coles. It looks like ALDI’s winning Chrissy thus far.
These type of ads aren’t made for attention, they’re basically made to be ignored. Coles simply know that the ave viewer will give this a glance and simply see ‘family, food, gathering, good times’ – not one viewer is going to question the content, or put up a counter argument.
The VO is a little on the fence though.
Joiiisus wtf did I just watch. My eyeballs did not know where to look. This is a dogs breakfast. Should have stayed with big red. The blatant box tickery is so bloody obvious too, no representation of the real Australian minority families, just flashes of misplaced asian and brown people. And why so dark and gloomy????? Such a missed opportunity here to create something beautiful, fun, crafted….. a literal light at the end of the tunnel of a sh*tshow of a year.
Curtis is probably the most Coles thing about this ad. The shots of the families were nice but pretty standard.
Let’s do better next year Coles. *thumbs up*
DDB. This could have been a Westpac or Maccas ad. Same creative treatment, same big emotional song. Please start thinking differently for you clients.
It would be good to know who the main talent is, that’s appearing in a commercial, not just who wrote, directed, produced, edited etc. Without the featured talent, you don’t have a commercial.