Coles champions all Australians in new ‘Value the Australian Way’ campaign via DDB Australia
Coles is launching a new campaign “Value the Australian Way” celebrating the role it plays in sustainably feeding all Australians and helping them lead healthier and happier lives. The new brand positioning via DDB Australia champions Coles as an organisation that lives at the heart of the nation and proudly supports team members, community partners, suppliers and millions of everyday Aussie shoppers.
As part of its new positioning, Coles has undertaken an Australian Kitchen Census to uncover what Australians value most when it comes to cooking and sharing a meal. Coles surveyed almost 5,500 customers around the country to understand Australia’s modern food values and how they shape our approach to shopping, cooking and eating in 2020 and beyond.
These key insights are reflected through the multi-channel campaign launching nationally today to support the Value the Australian Way positioning.
Created by DDB Australia and directed by Justin Kurzel, the campaign proudly champions Australia and encourages people to appreciate what we have while shining a light on our true values. It captures the very essence of what makes modern Australia unique and features real Australian friends and families, not actors.
At the centre of the campaign is a 60-second TVC set to a reimagining of Missy Higgins’ 2009 hit ‘Feel Like Going Back Home’ recorded especially for this campaign as a collaboration between Missy Higgins, Dingo Spender and the current lead singer of Yothu Yindi, Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu. The original track was written by Stephen Pigram and featured in the beloved film musical Bran Nue Dae.
Says Lisa Ronson, CMO, Coles: “As one of the first supermarket brands in the country, Coles has been at the heart of Australian society since 1914. Our purpose is to sustainably feed all Australians, so we understand the integral role food plays in our lives – and when it comes to how we shop, cook and eat, our new campaign Value the Australian Way celebrates our past and future.
“We know providing value through our trusted Down Down and everyday low prices is more important today than it’s ever been, and so is listening to what Australians value in their lives. Our research shows Australians cherish sharing a meal with friends and family and they want to support Aussie farmers, food producers and their local community. At Coles we’re committed to helping our farmers and fishermen produce ethical and sustainable food for all Australians so we can continue be a part of Australians lives for many more centuries to come.
“Our new campaign tells the story of Coles’ legacy while also contemporising its role in society, serving customers and the wider community each day. We’re incredibly proud of the work and thank DDB Australia, Big Red, OMD and Mango for helping us achieve our ambitions.”
Says Ben Welsh, chief creative officer, DDB Australia: “We are incredibly excited to be a part of the next chapter for Coles. Despite facing many hurdles this year, Australians are an optimistic, down-to-earth, authentic bunch, which is why we decided to feature real families enjoying small moments of human connection centred around food. The music, paying homage to Australia’s rich cultural history, makes this campaign even more special.”
Coles is proud to be Australia’s largest private sector employer of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Nine- time Aria Award winner Missy Higgins said this was the first time she has been part of an ad campaign because it was supporting Indigenous artists.
Says Higgins: “It’s been a tough year for lots of Aussies, so I love the optimistic feel of this new campaign. It’s great to see how diverse and inclusive it is. It’s also great to see Coles backing great Indigenous Australian talents like Stephen Pigram, who wrote this tune and Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu with whom I dueted on the track.”
As part of the fully integrated launch, spanning TVC, social, radio, earned media, website and instore, a simple new logo will be applied to all Coles Supermarkets touchpoints moving forward.
Michelin-starred chef and Coles ambassador Curtis Stone is proud to be part of the Value the Australian Way campaign and says the Coles Australian Kitchen Census shows how much Australians have in common when they think about cooking and mealtimes.
Says Stone: “For me personally, the campaign combines two things that are very close to my heart – Australia and all the goodness from our Great Southern Land, with the mission of putting the best food on Aussies’ tables at the lowest possible price. I love Australia and I love food, so I can’t help but be really proud of what this campaign is all about.
“I was 4 years old when I had my first truly memorable food experience – I tried my granny’s Yorkshire fudge and I just couldn’t get enough of it. The fact that many other Australians believe their childhood memories play an important role in how they cook today makes perfect sense to me. My own memories of food have most definitely shaped how I cook.
“These days, my cooking philosophy is to keep it simple and cook with naturally produced ingredients. It’s wonderful to see that a significant proportion of Aussies value the same approach when shopping and cooking at home, with many of us favouring locally grown, responsibly sourced food.”
Client: 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
Sally Mann – Media Manager
Geoff Turner – Head of Group Marketing Research and
Insights
Martine Alpins – Senior Communications Manager
Creative Agency: DDB Australia
Andrew Little – Chief Executive Officer
Priya Patel – Managing Director
Leif Stromnes – MD, Strategy & Innovation
Dom Hickey – Head of Planning
Ben Welsh – Chief Creative Officer
Noah Regan – Head of Art
Tim Woolford – Creative Partner
Tommy Cehak – Creative Partner
Topher Jones – Managing Partner
Katie Franklin – Business Director
Sarah Cox – Senior Business Manager
Renata Barbosa – Head of Integrated Content
Tash Johnson – Lead Senior Broadcast Producer
Cushla Morton – Senior Print Producer
Media Agency: OMD
PR Agency: Mango Communications
Research and Corporate Strategy: Thinkerbell
Production Company: Revolver/Will O’Rourke
Director – Justin Kurzel
Managing Director/Co-Owner – Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer/Partner – Pip Smart
Producer – Serena Paull
Director of Photography – Lachlan Milne
Editor: Alexandre de Franceschi @ The Editors
Post Production: Heckler
Colourist – Olivier Fontenay
Online – Jonathan Hairman
Music: Feel Like Going Back Home
Recording: Missy Higgins, Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu, Dingo Spender
Songwriter: Steven Pigram (Universal Music Publishing)
Music Supervision: Level Two Music (Karl Richter, Marcus Brooke-Smith, Hugh Owens)
Audio Post: Sonar Music
Engineer: Timothy Bridge
Casting: Natalie Jane Harvey @ Citizen Jane
Stills Production
Photographer: Ben Baker
Producer: Chris Hemmings @ Still Rep
70 Comments
I always liked this ad.
An 874 word press release. A little bit of an overkill me thinks.
At least it’s better than down down?
Who in the industry didn’t work on this? That’s one mighty credits list and agency/production bill for a mediocre 60” slice-of-life montage.
Wow!
I can’t talk, I’m rushing out now to buy products from Coles.
Yawn. Nothing new in this – just more of the same from Coles. If people even realise it is for Coles (poor branding, will misattribute for sure). And ‘Value the Australian Way’ – really? Track is nice but I expected more given the credit list.
All we need is a montage
Put a Woolies logo on it and you wouldn’t no the difference.
These ads are way too formulae and generic.
Overly forced diversity. Tick.
Gatherings. Tick.
Beach. Tick.
BBQ. Tick.
Abundance of food. Tick.
Insert celebrity chef. Tick.
Generic music track. Tick.
Lame line about Australia. Tick.
No idea. Tick, tick.
Done.
Warm tone tick
Great production values tick
A new line with meaning tick
For a montage it will do very well to set a new direction that’s not down down
@Sally.
Client/agency defending mediocrity. Tick.
I want to like it because there’s a bunch of lovely people that no doubt worked very hard on it, but it’s just so forgettable. One of those ads that literally becomes background noise when it’s on TV. Particularly against the amazing stuff that Aldi does. But I do have faith in DDB, they’ve done a good job with Westpac and Maccas. Hopefully there’s more to come here.
It seems they both agreed on everything about this montage.
We thank the CMO for her very long explanation of the strategy and we also thank DDB for their very long press release.
But sadly it all counted for nothing when I watched the work.
I like the mangoes in the sea shot. It’s not going to win any awards but it feels authentic. Same team as Westpac, and although it’s not on a par (yet?), it shares some of the same strengths.
By stomping out local products, local buthers, local grocers. One cheap product at a time.
its boring
Can’t wait to see it graded.
Now you just need to make an ad that’s more Australian. The Aldi ad that has a reporter in a helicopter looking for toilet paper shoppers is way more Aussie than this. And in terms of value, down down communicates that 100 times better.
The last thing I want is another home-cooked meal.
I wanna go to the pub
Get pissed with my mates
And never cook a fucking meal again!
Coles, Wollies and the local bottle shop have leached most of my cash through this crisis.
Time to spend my money elsewhere.
There’s an insight.
@When this CO-vid is over….
Oh, you poor thing. I can smell your privilege though the computer. And it’s stinky.
Value the Australian way.
Please do not let strategy planners write your lines.
This really is very dull and laboured. Did the editor fall asleep during this? It’s a revolving medley of blahhhhh. And where is the branding? With that many people involved no wonder we such a dull ad.
Why did they need DDB to do this, Big Red having been doing this line and length for years.
Why would Coles appoint DDB to do this type of work which nobody does better then Ted Horton?
horrid, but hey nobody will care.
I never thought I will ever say this. But this new campaign makes Status Quo singing ‘Down, Down, prices are down’ look super-creative.
What kind of person eats mango in the sea? It’d get all salty and wet. It’s not the Australian way to eat salty and wet mangoes.
Why on earth would you do stuff like this? Me think they took the money on this one.
Dull, very dull.
This is bottom of the barrel positioning, seriously. Wonder how much they paid for that piece of solid gold insight that they’re both Australian and offer value.
Yeah.
There’s no idea here.
I bet there was at one point.
But you allowed the client to whittle it down and here we are
Need you to be this bad to look so good. But I’m sure they appreciate the leg up
Twice in the past year I have attended industry forums where the Coles CMO preached the power of creativity. I was very impressed,but having seen this brand work I am less impressed. Just bland with no idea.
Hmmm I don’t really understand it, very confusing, whats in it for the shopper?
It’s not just Coles. Other high profile CMOs talk about creativity and produce bland work too.
The client could have given this brief to a good production company with the brief to make smiley people enjoying food the Aussie way. It would have looked better because more of the client’s money would have ended up on screen. This isn’t difficult stuff to write or produce.
Not a whole lot of social distancing going on in that shoot, was there?
Dunno about anyone else but I always think that woolies is much more Aussie.
Easy to slag this kind of stuff off. Anyone who has worked on Woolies or Coles has produced this kind of work. But a lot of polish has gone into this ‘clean up on aisle six.’ The director of Snowtown. Missy Higgins. Yothu Yindi. That annoyingly quintessential white Aussie surfy chef. I’m guessing the jerkiness of the camera was the ‘B’ or ‘C’ crew from a huge 2 day shoot, a massive amount of setups. It’s a pity the idea is sycophantic and lacks any real substance. Everybody knows how Coles absolutely screw Australians from the farmers, small businesses and suppliers right up to the toilet-paper buyers, Coles need to back this with more than advertising to win any hearts. But a lot of money has gone into this. That’s good for our industry, right?
I assumed it was DDB Melb that picked up the Coles account, or are Sydney managing things as Chairman Dan obliterates Melbourne’s economy?
Like Mr or Ms Low Hanging Fruit I concur that this film is good for the industry.I just wonder if they have got the best out of those talented folk.
The song is immediately forgettable and the sublime skills of Snowtown director Justin Kurzel are wasted.But you are right it is work.Just not the best work.A question..why did you point out that the chef is white?
Generic, slice of life rubbish.You could put any logo at the end of this and still no-one would care
This is shit. No idea. It could have be Woolworths, IGA or even Macca’s.
At least with Down, Down, Down there is an idea.
What a complete waste of money.
Kudos to the commentariat. You’ve spared me the effort.
My bet is that none of the anon snipers here has worked on huge projects like this before. It’s a minefield of a million stakeholders and uber conservative committee-consensus thinking… and the target audience is not a bunch of surly folks at home working on banner ads. Just be nice to your colleagues in the industry busting their arses to keep clients happy and doing whatever they can to make the work as good as they can – against all odds.
Hey MB. You sound junior. See, the thing is, this shouldn’t have required anyone to bust their gut. Because it isn’t good enough. Way too much thought, and torture I’m sure, has gone into the strategy and everything else from client who clearly doesn’t really know what they want. You can feel how much the client wants it to be good, hence such a long press release. But it isn’t. And they can’t see it. So, no. No sympathy. Fight for better.
On the contrary,I think a lot of those commentating have been quite understanding about our colleagues elsewhere.
I am far less understanding of the client.For goodness sake isn’t it time this CMO started practising what she preaches at all those seminars?
Great to see them move to a more emotionally driven platform.
Looking forward to seeing what comes next and how they make it distinctive from Woolies.
It’s good for Coles, anyone who has ever worked on this account knows how hard it is!
Very funny.
Value the Australian way is a good thought the ad sets up Australian lifestyle and little things etc it’s simple but it’s obviously the launch of a new platform
A message to Progress.
They are all hard.Harder than ever before.
So it is not a valid excuse for the work we have just seen.
Sorry.
Welcome aboard!
hahahahahaahhahahahhahahhaa. hahahhhaha. yeah, good one.
You blokes still got them party pies and Curly Wurly’s?
I have to commend DDB for being one of the only agencies in Australia able to convince clients to invest in big, emotional, brand-building advertising. But this one is a real let down. Generic idea (the little things are bigger than we thought), generic execution (multicultural Australians connecting over food), generic brand platform. The creatives behind this campaign have made incredible work so I’m putting this one down to the clients…
Revolver!
Woolworths got on top of Coles over the last few years by being consistent with their tone of voice,messaging,platform,music and an innate connection with Australia.Over the same period Coles have changed their platform at least 4 times.Hopefully Value the Australian way swings the pendulum their way.
Did nothing for me, which is worse than not liking it.
Don’t you think that’s a little irresponsible? The Westpac ad cost 4mil. The Coles ad looks like it cost a fair chunk of change too.
When budgets are shrinking, our thinking should adapt. Not convince the client to throw a bunch of money at the problem.
Why bother?
Wonder what Big Ted thinks….
Would genuinely like Ted’s view but it is unlikely that he could comment.I’d be pissed off if I were him.
of money
Saw it on TV and presumed it was created by Big Red.Surprised when I read the PR blurb.
Quite seriously,I reckon Ted did do it.
I reckon Ted stormed on set.
Fired the director.
Then took over.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Woolies wouldn’t be worried by this.
Neither Aldi.
For an ad supposedly representing all Australians, where is our Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander families, we shop at Coles too!
Can’t stand the screaming high pitched female voice screaming out “Value the Australian Way” just makes me cringe just puts me off ever wanting to shop at Coles – even my dog can’t stand her voice – when the add comes on rushes up to the TV barks at the picture and tries to knock the TV over.
Why don’t people think about how an advertisement will impact viewers of all nationalities before putting this type of rubbish together.
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