Canny marketing
CELEBRATE FRESH
And by implication - healthy. This is the slogan on the cover of this month's Coles Magazine and the concept is consistently used throughout the magazine.
Also throughout the magazine every recipe has a little ' Just add' button which suggest some kind of fresh fruit or vegetable that you could add to the recipe.
The emphasis is on avocados and snow peas, because they are also promoting them in this edition - they are in season I assume - or maybe avocado, for example, never actually goes out of season in people's minds. Anyway whatever the reason for choosing the particular products, it's a clever way of promoting them, whilst making you feel potentially creative, and also healthy.
In my list of potential blog topics I find I wrote some time ago 'health ads in Coles Magazine' but I did nothing about it. But once again, with this month's issue I was struck by the apparent emphasis on health and fresh food in the magazine - both in the articles themselves and also in the ads scattered throughout it. They even had a double page ad for healthy pet food! Which I find interesting for a number of reasons.
Here are just two of the ads in this month's magazine:
(I do rather like the zen hens - though I bet the eggs are expensive.)
Coles is one of the big two (or is it three these days?) supermarkets in Australia and has immense market power. They have millions, possibly billions of dollars at their disposal and so can, of course, use lots of dollars on promoting themselves. What is interesting is that they seem to be choosing to promote themselves as healthy and fresh. Woolworths of course is doing the same, but I don't see the Woolworths magazine as often. It seems to be more intermittent. I shall keep my eye out though and do a comparison sometime. What I find odd is that this goes hand in hand with an obesity epidemic that we all must know about. And often a lot of the blame is laid at the door of processed, salty and sugary foods found in the supermarket (frequently in the health food aisle too). Now I live in a very middle class and educated area, and if the magazine was just aimed at me I could see the point. But Coles is a national supermarket with supermarkets in every single kind of demographic that exists in Australia. The magazine is free, so you don't have to be rich to get it - well it's basically a promotional vehicle for the store is it not? Anyway, most of those demographics are probably not into health food. So should we be praising Coles? Do they really want us to eat healthily? Surely they don't care. Possibly true, but even if it helps their image to promote healthy living, why should we care what their motives are if the message gets through to those who need it most?
I ask because there are so many 'healthy' ads in the magazine. More than half I would say. Do they seek out ads from particular companies and particular products or do they just take anything that comes? You would think the latter would you not? Or do they have an image in mind that their advertisers must conform to? There are ads for unhealthy things of course - ice cream and biscuits mostly, but it seems to me there are far more for health foods.
As to their own house brand products they have taken three different approaches in this edition. One is straight-out ads - one of these is healthy - the one shown here which has taken advantage of Australian Organic Awareness Month and the other ad is for their new range of gelato, which takes the gourmet, traditional approach rather than the healthy one - "The story behind our traditional Italian gelato range" ... "using a traditional creamy gelato recipe discovered in a gelateria in the town of Vicenza, near Venice" ... but even here they can't resist the health bit "made with no artificial flavours or colours." All accompanied by a glossy photo of the three flavours in what looks like glass jars, but is probably plastic.
Then they have used the 'recipe' sections to promote their bread - the more expensive Coles Finest by Laurent range and their Scoop and Weigh products. The bread item in particular could not really be said to fit in as a recipe section. It just shows the different breads and how best to use them. The Scoop and Weigh page is marginally more practical in that it shows how you can use the products and combine them with others.
Their home brand products are also listed where possible in the ingredients lists of the recipes themselves and lastly some of those products have little pictures at the foot of the recipe which uses it with a little bit of blurb.
So that's the self promotion. In the recipe sections themselves we are back to the fresh and healthy promotion. Almost all of the sections (not quite all) are focussed on fresh - 'Spring salads', 'Ripe and ready' (seasonal produce), 'Fast and fresh' and 'Overnight oats' and, as usual, Curtis Stone's little section concentrates on the seasonal produce. And that very sweet looking strawberry slice on the front cover is rather like the Donna Hay health bars I wrote about recently - no sugar at all in them - just fruit, nuts and coconut cream and oil. And sprinkled amongst the other recipe sections you will find many so-called 'healthy' recipes.
And finally they even have a little challenge for you. A long list of fruit and vegetables with a little box beside each one for you to tick if you eat it during the month. You know I might even try it - just to see how many of them I do eat. If you live in Australia you can pick it up at your supermarket - for you foreigners you can find the list here.
Thank you again Coles Magazine for providing food for thought. Which I hasten to add does not necessarily mean that I think they are benevolent crusaders for a healthy society, even if we do have shares in them. It's interesting though - let's hope the health message gets through to those who need it most - at least those who need it most have access to this particular magazine. Donna Hay might be fresh and healthy too but her magazine costed $8.50. Preaching to the converted there.
