Coles launches new ‘Together to Zero’ sustainability campaign via DDB Australia
As part of its ambition to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket, Coles Group is launching a national campaign via DDB Australia, that brings to life and celebrates its recently launched Sustainability Strategy under the pillars of “Together to Zero” and “Better Together”.
Commencing Sunday 25th July, the campaign highlights Coles’ aspiration towards zero waste, zero emissions and zero hunger and encourages all Australians to work together to ensure Australia is a better place for future generations.
“Together to Zero” was first unveiled in March, when Coles announced emissions targets including a commitment to be 100% powered by renewable electricity by the end of FY25, and addresses Coles Group’s ambition to reduce its impact on the environment.
Part of Coles’ journey to become more sustainable is to look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary plastic. Having recently stopped selling single-use plastic tableware, Coles has also reviewed the sustainability of its marketing campaigns and has today committed to no longer give away plastic collectible toys.
Coles will continue to explore reward programs that inspire and offer value to customers, such as the recent MasterChef cookware campaign which provides practical items for customers to use in their homes, or more sustainable items such as last year’s popular Little Treehouse book series made from FSC certified paper.
Coles chief marketing officer Lisa Ronson said while collectible toy programs like Little Shop and Stikeez have been popular with customers in the past, they no longer align with Coles’ sustainability ambitions or with customers’ preferences and priorities: “Coles has been in the lives and homes of Australians for more than 100 years and our unique position in Australia comes with responsibility.
“As part of our Together to Zero mission, we’ve been reviewing our marketing campaigns through a sustainability lens. While very popular, we must listen to our customers who say their priorities are changing. In a recent survey of 9,000 of our customers, reducing waste to landfill and plastic packaging was the number one concern when it comes to environmental issues in retail, with 69% of those surveyed saying it was of high importance to them1. We know that customers will understand the need to ensure our campaigns are more sustainable for future generations.
“We are proud to be now using our marketing platforms to raise awareness of our sustainability ambition which is focussed on acting together now for generations of Australians ahead. We are on a journey and understand our responsibility to minimise our environmental footprint and to show leadership in protecting our planet and climate.
“Our ambition is to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket which means we need to be committed to reducing unnecessary plastic, and this extends throughout our business. We are committed to innovating when it comes to packaging so that where we can’t eliminate packaging and plastic, we are ensuring it’s contributing to the circular economy by being produced with recycled content where possible, as well as being recyclable.”
Chairman of Clean Up Australia Pip Kiernan said what we are seeing here is strategy in action by Coles to reduce single use plastics: “Coles is being true to their word that they want to be the most sustainable supermarket in Australia and is taking deliberate steps to get there. It’s simple steps together with our millions of volunteers that powers Clean Up Australia. We are really encouraged to see Coles making meaningful changes to all parts of their business.”
As part of its pledge to make packaging more sustainable, Coles has removed 31 million soaker pads from meat trays this year. This means 31 million soaker pads not being sent to landfill.
Coles will close the loop on the packaging of some of its most popular instore bakery items by committing to have them made with 100% recycled content in FY22, in addition to already being fully recyclable at kerbside.
The change will apply to 60 million pieces of packaging each year on instore bakery products like cookies, donuts, danishes and muffins. Instead, the packaging will be made from 100% Recycled PET, a sustainable solution that also requires less energy to manufacture per kilogram than virgin PET, further contributing to a decrease in the environmental footprint.
Coles Group no longer sells single-use plastic tableware products including cups, plates, bowls, straws and cutlery. Additionally, in March, Coles announced a joint feasibility study to determine the benefits of a local advanced recycling facility in Victoria. Advanced recycling offers new life to old soft plastic by turning it back into oil which can be used to produce new soft plastic food packaging.
Coles also reaffirmed its commitment to packaging sustainability by joining the Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands Plastics Pact (ANZPAC) as a founding member, committed to eliminating unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging and ensuring 100 per cent of plastic packaging is recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.
Coles is celebrating 10 years working with food rescue organisation SecondBite and soft plastics recycler REDcycle. Together Coles and SecondBite have helped provide the equivalent of more than 151 million meals to Australians in need and, with REDcycle, collected more than 1.5 billion pieces of soft plastics to be used in furniture, children’s playground equipment, roads and even Coles carparks.
Coles Australia:
Chief Marketing Officer – Lisa Ronson
Head of Brand and Content – Bianca Mundy
Senior Marketing Manager – Patrick Breen
Creative Agency: DDB Australia
Chief Creative Officer – Coles – Darren Spiller
Head of Art: Noah Regan
Senior Art Director: Adam Ledbury
Senior Copywriter: Will Halstead
Head of Integrated Content: Renata Barbosa
Lead Senior Producer: Tania Jeram
Managing Partner: Pippa O’Regan
Group Business Director: Leah Williams
Senior Business Manager: Sarah Cox
Senior Print Producer: Sonia Ebrington
Production Company: Exit Films
Director: Mark Molloy
Executive Producer: Leah Churchill Brown
Producer: Alexandra Taussig
DOP: Jeremy Rouse
Production Designer: Bev Dunn
Editor: Mark Burnett, The Editors Sydney
Grade: Fergus Rotherham
Online / VFX: Andy McKenna
Sound Engineer: Colin Simkins, Gusto Studios
Stills Photographer: Andreas Smetana, Flint
46 Comments
Can we borrow your 90% of your ‘Towards Zero’ campaign assets.
Cheers,
Coles
Perhaps start with a recycling campaign to collect all the utterly useless Little Shop lumps of plastic splattered in junk draws around Australia.
…were harmed in the making of this ad.
Phew.. that’s a relief.
WW and Coles both launching green sustainability campaigns within 2 days of each other… both with exactly the same 2025 green energy target. Let’s see who comes out on top
The one that’s already the green one.Woolies are just more connected with Australian life.Look how sensibly they have handled Covid.I just trust them more.
Wonder how they managed to get the woman who did the voiceover for ET?
Lol
I am out.
emissions are down
Why are they all standing in paralysis at the end? The old cowboy looks seriously uncomfortable!
How can Coles be contributing to the Australian way by investing in renewables scattered wildly hilly all over the country. Destroying the environment to save the environment. Think of what they are made of, how they are disposed of after a short, unreliable lifespan, health, values and impact on people’s lives and property values, wildlife destruction, fire risk etc. Also consider the connecting transmission lines, batteries and other infrastructure that come with renewables. Too often it’s a good idea in the wrong location and better planning is needed before throwing money at communities in an attempt to gain acceptance.
has never looked so dull.
Woolworths nails it. This is really try hard and depressing… we’ve had constant battles about ‘dark’ gloomy images for a major brand relaunch, not really Coles is it? Don’t get me started on the casting!
Beautifully shot. A depressing track? Well, we are in a climate crisis. Right amount of hopeful for mine.
I’m out.
What is the phase shift for the function y=3.2cos(1.5x+6π)?
More wind farms and more solar panels ….YAWN.
this is just sad and dull.
Coles has lost its way.
“let’s create thousands of plastic collectibles and then tell everyone to stop polluting, that’ll work.”
This is the bland pap that keeps protected people feeling safe. I reckon At least 100 million will be burnt on this piece of pap, when someone could have said, ‘a generic montage of pap is not the solution…’
Of all the kaleidoscope of the woke world we live in, this maybe the peak of woke. When you have nothing to say sing it. When you have distinctiveness, appeal to minorities, when you are the leader act like a sheep. This is a Ritson tick, a reality fail.
I thought supermarkets were about lots of groceries, good meat and fresh veg and how much they will cost me?
Bring back Ted.
Did DDB just sneak in a new CCO?
Given that coles had all their marketers trained by mark ritson, who always says job number 1 is to be distinct and standout, I’m surprised they’ve created a generic ad that could be for any number of aussie brands. When did creativity equal lifestyle shots, no idea, a gloomy grade and a depressing song? Perhaps they should look to the Woolies ad to see how it’s done… well branded, engaging and memorable.
Zero Coles ads would be good. Who approves this? So much money wasted on production & media, when you could just reduce prices.
And who is that voice over….terrible.
You can do better DDB, or just give it back to Ted.
So up itself.
Advertising has the lost the plot. I’ve just started in the industry, just finished award school, and I already can’t wait to get out. A sinking ship filled with virtue signalling marketers who are utterly divorced from reality. Enjoy the decline and fall.
Another boring piece of wallpaper from Coles….and DDB. Lacks an idea, boring you to death, depressing rather than upbeat, awful V/over, self serving crap.
Wake up Coles. You’re getting your butts kicked by both Woolies and Aldi.
It’s good – well done to all involved
How did they go from having one of the most potent brand properties in advertising to having none?
Unless you count the increasingly peripheral Curtis Stone.
Staggering.
What’s so good and why do you like it?
I’d hate to be in the Coles Boardroom when the Coles and Woolies campaign tracking results are put up.
Did Harry and Meghan write the strategy?
I think the big news here is Chief Creative Officer – Coles, Darren Spiller
I believe this is a reference to how many positive comments Coles thought they’d get on campaign brief. Excellent prediction. Bravo.
How to take a big, positive announcement from Coles and bury it with blandness and melancholia. A dated, uninspiring response to what should be a contemporary and uplifting message to the public.
Contemporary and uplifting….that would be the other supermarket.
The woolies work looks cheap and cheerful. Which is a tick. But this feels more like it has the stature of the largest supermarket, and it takes the issue seriously, and I think punters will probably walk away thinking Coles takes it more seriously than woolies. so that’s a bigger tick to coles.
Didn’t know we had a new CCO?
My God Coles is full of it. Let’s not pretend you’re not busy using your massive buying power, sales data, and control of what goes on your shelves to do things like control the price of milk then praise yourself for raising it so farmers can actually survive on bread and dripping or see that satay tofu sales are great so you make your own and remove the original brand. It’s such advertising BS. “We care.” No you bloody don’t. At best you’re being forced to be sustainable. Don’t shove it down our throats.
YUK.
Right now, WW’s have a captive audience with the Olympics. But unlike the Olympics the Coles campaign will be around for much longer than 3 weeks. Let’s see what people think about both campaigns in a few months after normal transmission has resumed.
Molloy and Jez doing their thing. All good. Beautiful pictures. But why would you spend a couple of million bucks on a TVC and use a $200 stock music track we’ve heard a hundred times before? Don’t we have composers? Performers? Any new ideas?
Another question is why you would depart so quickly from the brand music which was such a distinctive part of their huge brand relaunch just a year ago.Coles marketing continues to mystify me.
Love the intention and dropping the frivolous bits of plastic junk to entertain kids for the drive home… BUT, Coles, you need to use only plant based BIOdegradeable plastics for your wrappings, don’t offer any plastic bags at point of sale (jute or hemp bags instead) and drop palm oil from your baked goods.
Most importantly, you cannot begin to achieve your zero goal whilst promoting animal agriculture. With those magnificent black Angus yearlings in your advert, you are promoting regressive thinking about our future protein resources. Eating animals is not progressive in any way.
We all know animal agriculture is unsustainable, cruel and detrimental to the environment and our atmosphere, not least to our collective consciences and health.
Pfft. Awful, hypocritical, woke garbage. Cynicism meter just exploded.
And at least get someone who can speak without a lisssp for the ad!
I am sick and tired of these virtue signalling multinational companies constantly sprouting this BS.
Go Woke, Go Broke. I am off to ALDI.