Search results matching tag 'woolworths'

Click n Mix n Collaboration: Woolies 2.0

2228399 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:06:00 GMT

Bringing back Woolies was never going to be an easy task given that the old Woolworths was such a loved institution. So it's been nice to see the Woolies team embrace social media, and place collaboration at the core of its brand strategy. To a point it was a no brainer - if people love the Woolies brand and (mostly) loved the Wollies product range, then why not get those people closely involved in developing the newly revamped Woolies 2.0.

Over the last 20 weeks, since the Barclay Brothers bought the Woolworths brand, the Woolies team have been getting their loyal following involved in the relaunch process as much as possible by blogging, Facebooking and Twittering. And with much success: the Woolworths blog has had over 500,000 visits and nearing 1000 comments; Twitter 2380 followers; 5,865 Facebook fans.

Importantly the Woolies team seems to have been genuinely listening to the their customers - and in particular have brought back an online version of their much loved Pic n Mix - which they've dubbed Click n Mix - which I love!

Happily the guys at Glue kindly dropped off a bag of Click n Mix to the office yesterday, which I devoured like a school-kid.

You can see my v.amateur video tour of Woolies' Click n Mix here:

Habitat’s Tehran branch – how not to use Twitter

2419367 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:30:00 GMT

I've been watching the way that the situation in Iran has been unfolding on Twitter with a mixture of surprise and confusion for some time now.

Yes I can see the huge importance of getting first hand reports out of the country and the vital role that new media has played in the debate - although I'm not sure I agree whole heartedly with Gordon Brown's comments that as a result, “you cannot have Rwanda again”.

What has most surprised me most though is the string of messages that started appearing over a week ago asking tweeters to turn their avatar green to show support for the people of Iran. Is this really helping? Why would I do this? What’s more, once I have turned my avatar green, do I keep it have to keep it green forever?

As a result of all this activity, #Iran and #iranelection have been top trending topics for the last week or so. Enter Habitat…

As the news broke that Habitat had started adding inappropriate hashtags to its sales offers, it started to become clear that we were now being presented with a great case study on how not to use Twitter.

The story of the intern who added inappropriate hashtags to Habitat offers (and has since been fired) will no doubt be told again and again over the coming months. But it also helps to highlight another Twitter issue that emerged earlier this week - namely that the micro-blogging site is proving to be very effective at sending traffic to media websites, but not online retailers.

This is clearly a challenge for all online retailers. As the new Woolworths online only store launches today it’ll be interesting to see whether they can make Twitter work for them. Just stick to picknmix hashtags – and steer clear of politics.

Follow the IAB on Twitter

Is social media too wordy???

2228399 — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:18:00 GMT

I've been following Woolworth's re-launch over the last few months and really like how they've optimised the use of social media to maintain that loveable / close relationship Woolies always had with its customers.

Whilst readying themselves for their big launch in the coming months, Woolies have been maintaining their customer love + building new love via the usual social media channels: blog, twitter and facebook. They've also added a nice aural aspect to their social media by using Last.fm and Spotify by creating "Now that's what I call Woolworths". That's a great innovation + nice and quirky + very Woolies.

However, one thing that the Woolies social media team seem to have missed is pictures! There's a real lack of imagery on the Woolies blog - there's not even a photo of the mysterious Woolies blogger Matthew - and given that much of a shopping brand experience is visual (think of those overladen-toy-covered shelves that used to fill Woolworths) they seem to be missing a trick.

With the recent surge in Twitter usage, social media seems to have been over-run by words, and the humble image has been left behind. If a picture paints a thousand words, then maybe we should all be vlogging + flickring rather than tweeting, Or maybe that's the problem, images say a little too much - 1000 words rather than 140 characters . . .

Woolworths and Farepak - compare and contrast

1704826 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:29:00 GMT

Two years ago, Farepak went bust leaving more than 150,000 of its customers who had invested in the savings club largely penniless and with little hope for much of a merry Christmas.

Fast forward to today and the collapse of both MFI and Woolworths and Gordon Brown has moved quickly to make very public messages of support in the media with pledges that Woolworths will stay open over Christmas and that help would be given to those employees who may be made redundant.

This is of course worthy stuff - losing your job is worse than losing your Christmas savings. But it's still strange that for Farepak's customers, the government did the absolute minimum to support them and that they still haven't received any compensation from its creditors.

It'd be nice to think that Brown is showing compassion that his predecessor at the time of Farepak did not. But I'm left with a sneaky feeling that its customers were quietly ignored because they were generally on low-incomes and therefore not as visible to the media and to voters as what looks set to become an increasingly boarded-up high street.

What's your favourite newspaper cliche?

1704826 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:21:00 GMT

I've been disappointed so far that no newspaper has applied that lazy old cliché ‘if it didn't already exist, you wouldn't invent it' to the long-running and apparent demise of Woolworths, although I'm sure it will happen at some point.

This led me to thinking, what other clichés irritate you? They are particularly prevalent in sports reporting although anything ever written about the Scottish or Scotland normally has the epithet ‘brave' or ‘bravehearted' attached and this really annoys me.

And if you don't mind clichés, what other companies do you thing wouldn't be invented if it didn't already exist?

Woolies – is it worth it anymore?

322703 — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Well the share price certainly isn’t – at less than 10p, its one discount they weren’t bargaining for. When I first started in advertising, it was at McCann’s, and the first account I worked on was Woolworth. Yep, it was no fun at all. Then it was going through a major refocus and needed to get in shape having lost its way.

Many years later it’s back in the same old hole. No focus, no direction, a flagging brand and one with no definition or meaning to most consumers. When I visit my local one in Crouch End I usually leave with nothing. It’s full of tat. I’m not attracted to the ‘Worth It’ values brands (though the names good) because they look too cheap and you’d have to question their ethical source.

The only thing I do rate are the digital, radios they sell – I have bought 3 from them. Woolworth may still be one of the biggest retailers in sweets – hardly ethical in these health conscious time but what else? It must have lost out big time on music sales to the internet – once its most profitable product range. It’s format, look and approach now seem out dated. I couldn’t find one ethical product in their store. No attempt to win over the new consumer, even Argos have made the effort.

You have to question what planet the management are on - were they away on a conference when Stuart Rose announced Plan A? Currently they have over 800 stores and despite most of us visiting one at least once a year, annual profits are falling with the share price falling 70%. Not surprising that there’s a take over bid hovering around.

In desperation, and maybe too late, they’ve hired a new CEO, Steve Johnson (ex Focus DIY) to try and turn the place around. He has a tough challenge. Woolworth’s may simply had its day, despite the consumer’s affection for it and a credit crunch that could help it. Whatever Johnson does it’ll need to be revolutionary not evolutionary. And maybe a bit greener too.