Marketing Strategies of Woolworths and Coles Group

This essay discusses the marketing strategies of Woolworths and Coles Group, two major supermarkets in Australia. The essay analyzes their marketing practices, competitive edge, and success stories. Theoretical applications of marketing theories are also discussed.

Running head: MARKETING
MARKETING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MARKETING
Introduction
Marketing can be described as a thinking in the business domain whereby the customer
needs and their satisfaction acts as a primary concern. The concept of marketing is very different
from that of the selling because in selling the concept lies on exchanging the products of the
company with the customers in return for the cash, however this is not the case in marketing
whereby the main focus is to discover, arouse, create and satisfy the needs of the consumers
(Armstrong et al. 2015). Selling is primarily profit oriented whereas Marketing is customer
oriented. Marketing involves selection and the development of a product or a service,
determination of the price, development of the promotional strategy and the selection of
distribution channel.
The given essay is based on the marketing aspect of two organization. The organizations
which have been chosen for the given assessment are Woolworths and Coles group. These
supermarkets are situated in Australia and tend to form a large share of the grocery and
supermarket industry in the country. The marketing practices and competitive edge of each
company shall be discussed with evidence.
About the company: Coles Group
The Coles Group of companies is an Australian company which has various retail chains
under its brand name. The organization is the second largest retailer after the Woolworths
Limited and was under the Wesfarmers group of companies earlier, but now it plans to function
independently (Coles.com.au. 2018). The primary motive of the company is to provide the
different people of Australia with a unique shopping experience which they can trust and this
shall help it in delivery of services, quality and values. The marketing process of the organization

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is fairly simple in nature and tends to function on a six point plan which helps the company to
achieve their strategic objectives.
In order to satisfy the different needs of the customers, the company offers a large variety
of products which comprise of skin care, vegetables, whole meals, baby care and other premium
brand products from various parts of the globe (De Mooij 2013). The stores have matched up to
the food requirements of the Australian culture. The company provides competitive pricing poly
and uses various promotional strategies like reducing queue time for customers, providing
flexibility, collaborating with Second Bite program and others.
The primary competitive gain from this process is the flourishment of diversity, building
up of the brand image and increased revenue for the organization.
About the company: Woolworths
The Woolworths Supermarkets primarily known as the Woolies is an Australian
supermarket and grocery store chain which is owned by the organization Woolworths
supermarkets Limited, the organization was found in 1924 and along with the Coles group, the
company forms a duopoly in the Australian market. The supermarket chain sells a wide variety
of goods and services to the customers and has more than 1100 stores across Australia. The
marketing process of the organization is quite organized in nature and uses various channels for
marketing. Woolworths specially concentrates on the digital marketing platform with various
online channels for reference (Woolworths.com.au. 2018). The company sells a wide variety of
products like baby care, furniture, food items, home utilities, skincare’s and related goods at
competitive prices. The pricing strategy as followed by the organization is the cost leadership
strategy. Moreover, in order to promote the goods of the organization by following a

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comprehensive Fresh Food campaign and a good customer loyalty program which further attracts
the different customers towards the firm. Through this the organization has been able to gain a
large customer base.
Marketing Success
Woolworths
Recently, in February 2018, the company brought about a nostalgic brand image, subtle
advertisement messages and innovations marketing technique in order to gain a larger market
share. The main objective of the marketing campaign was to gain a larger market share with
respect to it competitor, the Coles brand (Czinkota and Ronkainen 2013). The primary focus of
the company was on the larger supermarket stores which attended to capture, family shops rather
than convenience store at the smaller stations. Furthermore, with respect to this strategy itself,
the company invested a large number of dollars to reduce the prices and repair its price
positioning in the organization (The New Daily. 2018). Moreover, this strategy of it, primarily
aimed to improve its image in the eyes of the different customers and the target market viewed it
as less expensive than that of its competitors. Along with this, the company concentrated on the
branding of the company which had ecologically friendly connotations of nature. Hence,
Woolworths, subtle advertisement strategy and concentration of green marketing helped the firm
to improve its profitability and in this quarter, the profits surged to 38%.
Coles Group
In the year 2014, Cole’s group of supermarkets came out with a marketing initiative
against the Cheap, Cheap marketing initiative by formulating on the lower prices. The company
used this as an extension of the Coles group`s down down strategy, with the help of which the

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organization wanted to signal that everyday goods which were available at Coles were priced
comparatively low and that it portrayed itself as a trust based pricing in the different
advertisement channels (Ward and Ward 2018). Through this marketing strategy, Coles attained
considerable success and its objective of portraying itself as a lower pricing retail chain was
achieved.
Theoretical application
Woolworths
From the marketing success example, as observed in the previous section, the primary
motive of the company Woolworths was to target a specific set of consumers who had a
particular well defined lifestyle. Their values, perceptions and priorities were faced at the center
of the focus of the company. Through targeting the retail stores which were situated in
respectable areas and targeted at the family audience, Woolworths made use of the Values,
Attitudes and Lifestyle theory based in marketing. According to Burns, Bush and Sinha (2014),
the consumer decision making and perceptions tends to form the major part of the marketer’s
activities and thus, the marketers and large organizations aiming to find success in the long run,
tend to cater to the values of the marketers. According to Babin and Zikmund (2015), if the
marketers believe in a certain dimension, the different companies aim to capture that dimension
For instance, as the ecofriendly mantra has become considerably a popular concept in general,
Woolworths aims to capture this though the logo. The subtle advertisements and the better
pricing strategy gives out a message to the target audience of the chosen lifestyle that the
company is concerned about their requirements. Hence, the competitive advantage of
Woolworths in this case is the brand image.

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Woolworths successfully captures the Values, attitudes and the lifestyle theory by
successfully offering the customers goods that they well, store and location strategy as per the
targeted lifestyle and the brand image hints at their attitudes (Goworek, McGoldrick and
McGoldrick 2015).
Coles Group
From the pricing strategy of the organization discussed in the previous section, it can be
stated that, the pricing strategy which was followed by the company was based on the
Competitive pricing strategy of the marketing. Cole’s group was facing competition from the
retail giant Woolworths organization and due to this reason, it decided to incorporate a
competitive pricing technique for the welfare of the company.
According to Bresler and Lubbe (2014), pricing component tends to form an extensive
aspect of the marketing theories and the pricing plays a key role in the success of the
organization. For this reason, it is very important for the firm to ensure its pricing strategy is
such that they are easily able to attain the desired target market audience. A competitive pricing
strategy can be described as a strategy where an organization tends to set the price of the product
or the service being offered with reference to the competition which is changing continuously.
According to Boone and Kurtz (2013), when two businesses tend to sell similar products to the
designated target market, this kind of pricing strategies are generally applied. Although the
service appears to be different, for instance Coles promises to offer everyday goods at reasonable
prices. Hence, it can be observed here that although the goods are similar, because of the
differentiated service, the prices might differ. However, competitive pricing strategy seems to be
the clear strategy of the Coles Group. The competitive advantage of Cole’s group is its inventory
and reasonable pricing

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Conclusion
Therefore, from the given analysis it can be stated that the Marketing dimension of an
organization tends to act as an essential aspect of it and any company who aims to achieve
success in the long run needs to look out for strategic marketing opportunities. The given essay
seeks to explain the concept of marketing followed by the importance of it. The two companies
which had been chosen for the essay were the Cole’s group and Woolworths. Both the
companies are engaged in retail business in Australia and take up an essential share of the
Australian supermarket industry. The marketing success of each company has been discussed
extensively with links to the marketing theories. Moreover, practical campaign examples along
with the theories and models applicable have also been discussed.

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References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Babin, B.J. and Zikmund, W.G., 2015. Exploring marketing research. Cengage Learning.
Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L., 2013. Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.
Bresler, M. and Lubbe, I., 2014. Marketing management.
Burns, A.C., Bush, R.F. and Sinha, N., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 7). Harlow: Pearson
Coles.com.au. ,2018. Coles Supermarkets. [online] Available at: https://www.coles.com.au/
[Accessed 26 Jul. 2018].
Czinkota, M.R. and Ronkainen, I.A., 2013. International marketing. Cengage Learning.
De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage
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Goworek, H., McGoldrick, P.J. and McGoldrick, P.J., 2015. Retail marketing management:
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The New Daily. ,2018. How Woolworths are winning over consumers. [online] Available at:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/02/23/woolworths-half-year-profit-coles/
[Accessed 26 Jul. 2018].
Ward, M. and Ward, M. ,2018. Coles focuses on 'everyday' lower prices in new campaign -
Mumbrella. [online] Mumbrella. Available at: https://mumbrella.com.au/coles-focuses-261305
[Accessed 26 Jul. 2018].

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Woolworths.com.au. ,2018. Woolworths.com.au [online] Available at:
https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 26 Jul. 2018].