Woolworths pulls Anzac campaign after social media backlash

Woolworths learned harsh lessons in social media marketing, and marketing around commemorative days, as its "Fresh in our Memories" campaign turned to custard yesterday.

The Australian retailer (which owns Countdown and Woolworths in New Zealand), launched an Anzac "tribute site," promoted through Facebook and Twitter.

It featured an image of a soldier with the words "ANZAC DAY LEST WE FORGET" at the top and "FRESH IN OUR MEMORIES" at the bottom.

An image generator on the site let people swap the image for one of their own.

The campaign quickly drew flak on social media, with many noting the similarity to Woolworth's marketing slogan "The fresh food people."

Channel Ten newsreader Sandra Sully and Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age columnist Peter FitzSimons were among those who retweeted "@woolworths don't make puns out of #AnzacDay. Beyond disrespectful".

There was a storm of similar tweets accusing Woolworths of crass marketing and cashing in as the hashtag #BrandzacDay gained momentum.

And the image generator was used to subvert the competition and its #freshinourmemories hashtag. Some of the pictures were merely mocking or goofy, others pretty crass (see a selecton  here. Don't click that link if you'd rather not see a certain rugby league player urinating. Yes, things got that out of control).

Initially, Woolworths stood by the campaign, issuing the statement:

As an Australian company since our creation more than 90 years ago, we are very happy to support our diggers.

Like all Australians, we pay our respects to service people past and present and it’s appropriate to do that with a small logo on the site.

But just hours later it changed its tune.

Last night, as it abruptly killed the tribute stories site (which as I type bears a web server error message rather than an explanatory statement), the retailer said via its Facebook page:

The Fresh in Our Memories website has been taken down this evening. The site was developed to give our staff and customers a place to put their stories to mark the Centenary of ANZAC.

We regret that our branding on the picture generator has caused offence, this was clearly never our intention. Like many heritage Australian companies, we were marking our respect for ANZAC and our veterans.

We continue to be proud supporters of the RSL and Camp Gallipoli in this important year and look forward to working with them into the future.

Woolworths has temporarily disabled its Twitter account. 

Here, subsidiary Countdown has taken a lower key approach to marking the memorial day online with a commemorative image on its Anzac page featuring the slogan "Countdown in the community."

There are lessons old and new for Woolworths in the episode. 

It illustrated, yet again, that fast is never fast enough when it comes to battling a social media bushfire.

And that it is always a stupid idea, in any media at any time, to plaster a commercial slogan over a commemorative image.  

As the day wound down, one wag posted:

And the grand winner! RT @KieranEM: I’ll never forget. #freshinmymemory #FreshinourMemories pic.twitter.com/7UERElYuSy

— Ruairidh an Dorcha (@Nightwyrm) April 14, 2015

Lucklily for Woolworths, the debacle will only stay fresh in our memories until the next social media debacle comes along.

"Sometimes it’s better to be nice than to be clever," says social media commentator Vaughn Davis. "Woolworths had gone the boring way of writing the RSL a big cheque and slapping a few discrete poppies here and there, this might not have been an Anzac Day they’d rather forget."

He adds, "Anyone can make mistakes. As L. V. Martin used to say, though, it's the putting right that counts.Woolworths yanked the site from the internet almost as soon as yesterday’s public backlash hit and the way they deal with it today will be the real test of what kind of brand they are."

ckeall@nbr.co.nz

Follow @ChrisKeall