Two of our big supermarket chains are in the throes of promotional giveaways that couldn’t be more different — but they’re pushing the same buttons to make us change our shopping habits.
It’s child pester-power versus high-end kitchenware versus “just lower prices” at New Zealand supermarkets right now.
The offerings couldn’t be more different.
New World shoppers collecting stickers to grab cast iron cookware, Woolworths giving out tin Disney Discs for kids to… well, it’s not really clear what kids do with them once they have them.
At Pak’nSave, it’s just business as usual — it doesn’t do giveaways.
In the past, these campaigns have created social media frenzies, with New World’s knife promotion, miniature shops, and little gardens being big hits. During the so-called ‘Summer of Smeg’, shoppers took to Trade Me to complete their full set of knives. There were 39,000 searches for them on the site in the seven days after the promotion’s launch.
But there’s a suggestion that the cost-of-living crisis has taken the excitement out of the offerings.
Reddit users are divided between wanting New World’s knife promotion back and just wanting lower grocery prices instead.
“It feels to me like these promos… people are getting less excited about them as they go along,” says RNZ’s money correspondent Susan Edmunds.
“When we started off with the Smeg knives and the little gardens and stuff, it seemed like everyone was talking about it and swapping things, and there was lots of chatter about it online, and I’m not seeing that as much now.”
Is the thought of some flash cookware enough to change a shopper’s behaviour, or get them in the door of a different supermarket?
Probably not, says Edmunds.
“We’re such creatures of habit when it comes to supermarket shopping that this is more likely to be rewarding loyalty with people who are already shopping there.
“There wouldn’t be that many people who are going ‘ooh, Woolworths or New World?’ and I’ll be swayed to New World by the Smeg giveaway. But I suppose that would happen if you had one on one side of the road and one on the other.”
Kids’ pester-power is probably worth a lot.
“As more of us shop online, that’s less of a factor, because kids don’t get any say on where you’re online shopping. But I suppose if you’ve got your kids nagging you to go to a particular shop, then that probably would sway you… but people are so committed usually to ‘their’ supermarket that they’re comfortable with and know where everything is.”
Having said that, her kids are collecting the Disney Discs and she’s “finding them all over the house — probably Smeg dishes would be more useful”.
She says the New World tie-up with Smeg is helping the higher-end brand to get established.
“This will help their brand recognition. People will start to get more familiar with it and maybe feel more comfortable if they’re shopping, and they maybe want a fridge, and they see a Smeg fridge. This all helps with that.”
The cookware being offered at New World doesn’t seem to feature in retail stores, although there’s plenty of similar, and expensive, equipment.
“But not that stuff, so I feel like this is probably a promotional play for Smeg to try and broaden its… potential market, and build up its brand name, and it’s got the power of New World behind it.
“Everyone loves these New World promotions, so it’s a win for them [Smeg] from a marketing perspective, and it’s a win for New World because you get these quite high-end products at a relatively cheap price… and then I guess it’s a win for consumers who get to stock up on — what is it — utensil holders and baking dishes and all sorts.”
Dr Pragea Putra is a lecturer in marketing at the University of Auckland Business School.
His shopping behaviour is currently being dictated by the demands of his seven-year-old son, who is collecting the Disney Discs from Woolworths.
He tells RNZ, while New World tends to attract shoppers who are a bit more established and value quality, and want nice things in their kitchen, Woolworths is tapping into the family market — parents with kids in tow.
But he thinks Woolworths has missed a marketing trick with its failure to emphasise that the discs it’s giving away aren’t plastic — they’re recyclable aluminium — and that there are games you can play with them instead of just collecting them to look at.
Dr Putra’s colleague, Dr Saira Raza Khan, looks at a different form of button-pushing, she’s an expert in consumer behaviour.
Her research has looked at the best way to get public health messages through, and it suggests that consumers are sick of having the fear factor used against them to get them to change their behaviour.
Dr Khan says gratitude is an underused, but powerful, motivator and health practitioners should be looking at it more often.
By RNZ‘s Alexia Russell
