Digital Marketing Strategy Analysis Report: Woolworths vs Coles

This report provides a critical analysis of Woolworths' digital marketing strategy, examining its website and social media presence in comparison to its competitor, Coles. It delves into the brand's target audience, current offerings, and positioning within the Australian grocery market. The report evaluates Woolworths' digital campaigns, identifying key failures such as the insensitivity of the Anzac Day campaign, lack of focus on specific social media platforms, and insufficient customer engagement. It then contrasts Woolworths' approach with Coles' more successful multi-channel strategy, highlighting the competitor's customer-centric approach and effective use of YouTube. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of customer engagement, personalization, and involvement in developing a successful digital strategy, offering valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities within the digital marketing landscape.

Running Head: DIGITAL MARKETING 0
Student details
8/8/2019
Digital Strategy Analysis Report

DIGITAL MARKETING 1
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Critical Evaluation of Digital Market Strategy......................................................................................2
Reasons for digital marketing failure.....................................................................................................3
Analysis of Competitor Digital marketing strategy...............................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................4
Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................5
Appendices............................................................................................................................................6
Campaign 1.......................................................................................................................................6
Campaign 2.......................................................................................................................................6
Campaign 3.......................................................................................................................................7

DIGITAL MARKETING 2
Introduction
A digital marketing strategy can also be described as digital media strategy which focuses on
the maximizing the impact of the product through technology-based initiatives (Dave
Chaffey, 2017). In the era of internet and networking marketing has been evolved to various
phases and social media portals are one of the major platforms which can impact the
marketing goal of the company. The digital marketing strategy can be defined as the
complete package of how the customers’ values and likings for the product can be perceived
(Skilton, 2016).
Woolworths is one of the most loved supermarkets in Australia. Woolworths and Cole’s
supermarket are considered to be the major grocery stores in Australia as 80% of the market
share is acquired by these two big supermarkets (Woolworths, 2019). The target audience is
based on the most common forms of segmentation are geographic, demographic, behavioural,
benefit and psychographic. Woolworths target audience is high earning and middle-aged to
old people. In this report, the Woolworths different digital campaigns are discussed in order
to understand the digital market strategy and its failure. The competitor company considered
is Cole’s supermarket and its aggressive digital media strategy.
Critical Evaluation of Digital Market Strategy
Woolworths, as described earlier, is the market leader in Australian grocery market. It has
currently 1000 stores across Australia and the major products involve fruits, vegetables, meat,
and packaged foods. The company website considered as the most comfortable website due
to its lot of options and colorful presentation of all the products (Woolworths, 2019).
However, the company social icons are considerably small in size. The supermarket has
introduced various channels to target audience attention but it seems like the traditional
brands still have scope to grow in all the portals.
The major features of the failure of the digital strategy can be categorized as lack of focus on
few social networks, for example, Woolworths has no content in its twitter page although the
company came in twitter in year 2008. Another failure points is when the responsibility is not
taken for executing social media activities. Woolworths daily uploads different campaigns,
however, it is seen that Woolworths have 780 posts in Instagram and they are same competed
to Cole’s more than 1000 posts. The company is trying to capture user-related data but still

DIGITAL MARKETING 3
the activity compared to the other supermarkets is less. The company’s YouTube channel has
also very less views although Facebook page is more active than compared to other any
social media platforms (Coles , 2019).
The major failed campaigns in Woolworths are focused on the common issue that is emotions
and feelings of Australian market (Please refer to Campaign 1 in Appendices section).
Woolworths marketing team’s intention was to give respect to Anzac soldiers on Anzac day
which is the national day for the soldiers who died in wars. This day is considered this day to
honour the brave soldiers in Australia and New Zealand. However, this marketing failed as
the customers found this advertisement insensitive as the Woolworths has slapped lot of
logos and promotion over the picture of soldiers (Mitchell & Rollason, 2015).
Reasons for digital marketing failure
Woolworths has many followers and attractive comments but the company has failed in
linking customer value towards the brand. It is evident that company has grown sales but the
company is failing in engaging and connecting through the digital market strategy. The
company page is not active and the users of the page are not getting enough encouragement
to post their experience which helps with connecting with the customer. The major reason of
the failure of the Anzac campaign is:
 Focus on wrong sentiments
 Proper research of the market was missing
 Proper content was missing
 The placing of company logo was wrong
 Customers found the strategy confusing in nature.
 The risk was not assessed properly
Analysis of Competitor Digital marketing strategy
Coles has a simple styling with one red color which makes the brand very unique (Coles ,
2019). The interesting part of the Coles website as compared to other brands that Coles show
its top five social links in the website rather than product list. This shows the confidence
Cole’s digital marketing strategy has. It will not be wrong to say that Coles has focused on
multi-channel social media strategy. The Coles campaign is attractive and they have linked
the aspirations with the consumer. In comparison with Woolworths, the Coles strategy is

DIGITAL MARKETING 4
more engaging and connecting towards customer needs. The Coles YouTube channel has
played a huge role in attracting the clientele (Please refer to the Campaign 3, 4 and 5)
Source: (Rajeck, 2015)
The company has rising likes and shares in Facebook which can be analyzed in above graph.
The Coles group is able to use the digital market strategy by fully utilizing the different social
media portals.
Conclusion
In the study, it can be concluded that customer is the king and to develop a successful digital
strategy. The major points discussed in the report are customer engagement, personalization
and customer involvement. The report has also discussed some issues which can impact the
digital marketing strategy.

DIGITAL MARKETING 5
Bibliography
Cole, 2019. View Winter recipes and tips in Inspire and Create. [Online] Available at:
https://www.coles.com.au/ [Accessed 10 August 2019].
Dave Chaffey, P.S., 2017. Digital Marketing Excellence: Planning, Optimizing and
Integrating Online Marketing. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis.
Fox, A., 2017. Aussie Brand Social Media Fails And Triumphs. [Online] Available at:
https://elemsocial-media-fails-and-triumphsent7digital.com.au/blog/aussie-brand- [Accessed
10 August 2019].
Mitchell, S. & Rollason, 2015. Woolworths chastised after Anzac campaign triggered social
media backlash. [Online] Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/woolworths-
chastised-after-anzac-campaign-triggered-social-media-backlash-20150415-1ml9kc.html
[Accessed 13 August 2019].
Rajeck, J., 2015. How Australian supermarket Coles delivers engaging content on social.
[Online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/how-australian-supermarket-coles-delivers-
engaging-content-on-social/ [Accessed 10 August 2019].
Skilton, M., 2016. Building Digital Ecosystem Architectures: A Guide to Enterprise
Architecting Digital Technologies in the Digital Enterprise. Berlin: Springer.
Woolworths, 2019. Welcome to Woolworths. [Online] Available at:
https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 10 August 2019].

DIGITAL MARKETING 6
Appendices
Campaign 1
Source: (Fox, 2017)
Campaign 2
Source: Coles Instagram

DIGITAL MARKETING 7
Campaign 3
Source Coles YouTube channel