Research context
Discuss about the Misleading Advertising and Solutions of Consumers.
The main aim of this research is to highlight the issues faced by Coles Australia. Coles Group Limited is a public limited company that runs number of retail chains. The company was second largest retailer all over the Australia. Coles has ‘lost its way’ and has dropped behind Woolworth the huge mainstream of key presentation metrics over the last 12 months, according to an influential survey of suppliers. The reason behind conducting this research is to evaluate the causes of these issues. The issue was covered with the help of news. The major issue in the context of Coles has been found that the company was engaged in false advertising.
The major problem area for the company is false advertising. Coles has been recovered guilty over false shoppers with claims that the products of bread were “baked today” by the Federal Court, with the court decision that the claims were false deceptive. The promotion of the products has kept great importance in selling products effectively. It has been analyzed that the products were promoted as “Baked Today, Sold Today” when they are in fact to some extent baked and frozen off site through supplier, finished and transported at in-store bakeries within Coles Supermarkets.
According to qualitative perspective, it is required for the business to keep focus on the quality of the product as due to false advertisement, company had to face issue in losing its customer and suppliers. In the context of quantitative perspective, it has been found that Coles Company was failed to compete with its competitors in an efficient manner. The company had taken number of steps in making improvements but was failed because of wrong chosen of strategy. Coles Supermarket Australia paid $2.5 million for making misleading or false representations and connecting in deceptive conduct in term to the promotion of its par baked products, in dealings brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (Heffernan & Han, 2015).
The proposed information will be used by the company for the purpose of making improvements in the operation so that the company will not face this advertisement issue in future. They intend to collect views of people with the information so that they can implement marketing campaign for making good image in the view of outsiders. It would be the good decision by the company as they faced numerous due to false representation of the product through promotional strategy. The decisions of the company should be firm and systematic so that the employees of the company move forward according to them. The company should go with correct decisions as wrong decision may lead the company into adverse situation.
Broad Problem Area and Generic Business Decision
The research questions regarding Coles’ Supermarket are mentioned below:
- What do customers want from Coles Company?
- How customers can get attracted towards products and services offered by Coles Supermarket?
- What is the major reason behind false advertisement in Coles?
- In what ways company misled customers by adopting false advertisement?
- What are the major consequences of false advertisement at Coles?
- How did company take initiative to improve its brand image in the market?
The list of information would be helpful for the company to resolve the issue as these questions facilitate researcher to investigate the reason behind issues and its consequences to the company. The customer is the key of success that is why their desire keeps huge importance in the business. The company can improve the decision making process after knowing the reasons behind false advertisement and its impact over the customers and the sales of the company.
The research objective of the company is mentioned below:
- To explore desires of customers from the Coles Supermarket.
- To investigate the quality of the products and services offered by Coles Supermarket.
- To evaluate the major reason behind false advertisement in Coles.
- To find out the ways by which the company misled customers by adopting false advertisement.
- To analyze the major consequences of false advertisement at Coles.
- To examine the brand image of the company in the supermarket.
The Australian retail industry is growing with the emergence of various leading players like Woolworths, Coles, Aldi etc. Among these retailers, Coles is a major retailer that plans and offers its products and services considering the needs and demands of potential customers. According to Grewal, Roggeveen &Nordfalt (2017), needs of customers drive their buying decisions in developing retail industry so that retailers like Coles Supermarketfocuses on the changing needs of customers. The company believes that it is very important to understand the customers while creating the strategies. According to a report of Coles (2016), the customers of company expectgreat value, excellent quality and wide range of products at affordable prices. In Australia, people want to purchase their grocery and other retail production reasonable rates. Considering this, Coles is committed to lowering the costs of shopping for its customers and providing trusted value. Additionally, the customers expect that they can avail routine and grocery products easily. So, Coles is working to enhance its store network to make the shopping simpler and easier for its customers.
The company is provided numerous products and services to the customers by adopting advertisement strategies. The store of the Coles matched up with the food requirements of Australia depending upon their culture and process of cooking. It has been found that the fashion was to cook number of foods from the scratch rather than utilising pre-packaged foods (Lewis & Huber, 2015). Therefore, company endorsed the practices of the food through providing diversity and options in food items. The company use advertisement strategy such as television, social media, banner and pamphlet for the purpose of attracting customers towards the services. The company attract customers by providing them number of variety in products at one place where customer do not require to move outside for purchasing different products. According to Wu, Neal, Trevena, Crino, Stuart-Smith, Faulkner-Hogg & Dunford, (2015), it is required for the company to have strengths such as customer loyalty, diversification and market share for increasing the revenues of the company significantly.
Research Question
Daugeliene & Liepinyte (2012) stated that with the increasing trends, today’s organizations have started showing misleading and false advertisement and entice the customers all over the world. The author defined that false advertising is the process of using misleading and false information to promote the products to targeted customers. This advertising does not reveal its sources. According to Heffernan & Han (2015), Coles is among the organizations which used false advertising for promoting its products to customers. This supermarket giant is ordered to pay the fine after disobeying the Australian Consumer Law by misleadingly advertising its bread products as “baked today” and “freshly baked”. There are some major reasons which forced the organization to use these advertisement practices. These reasons are given below:
In their article, Heffernan & Han (2015) stated that one of the major reasons behind Coles’ misleading advertisement is changing needs of customers. For example, today’s customers prefer to use fresh bread and related products, so that company planned to offer its breads as baked today” and “freshly baked”.
Australian retail industry is highly competitive as there are various players which pose competitive threat on Coles. To go ahead from its competitors, Coles used false advertising so that it can attract more customers and gain more competitive edge against other brands.
It has been analyzed that the company misled the customers by promoting wrong information in which the company promoted “Baked Today, Sold Today” and along with this company used “Freshly Baked In-Store”, but in actual they were not baked properly and frozen off site through a supplier, transferred and finished at bakeries within Coles Supermarkets. According to Dillbary, (2009), the companies should be on their words because they attract customer towards the products and services by adopting advertisement techniques and wrong interpretation between showed things by advertisement and offered products to the customer can lead the company into adverse situation. Balough, (2012), stated that the false advertising can be enlarged demand and so the socially best level of false advertising can be affirmative for the business due to linked amplify in consumption can set the misrepresentation from flawed competition. On the other hand there is another paper that maintains consumer consistency and determines the trustworthiness issue endogenously by commencing legal penalties in ways more connected to the research paper.
According to Jeeva(2016), advertising is one of the important options which are used by companies to approach its customers. But there are various companies that use false advertising to increase its customer base. It can have negative impact on the customers’ buying decisions. Along with the customers’ choices, it affects the brand image and reputation of company in the market. In this context, Bradley &Marshall (2013) stated that due to false advertisement of its products, Coles has experienced adverse consequences. It had a negative impact on the brand image of the organization as customers found that company has misled them. Additionally, it had not complied with the Australian Consumer Lawso it has been fined with $2.5 million penalty for this misconduct. In addition to this, Coles has been banned to advertise bread for next three years (Heffernan & Han, 2015). Also, it was ordered to show the signs indicating that it had broken Australian Consumer Law. This issue affected not only the brand image of the organization among customers but also its competitive position. In this way, the company had to bear these negative consequences because of the false advertisement issue.
The company has taken initiative to improve the brand image in the market as they suffered in the market due to false advertisements (Temporal, 2011). These initiatives are improvement in CSR policies as it can be seen in current situation that Coles Supermarket Australia has recognized the market precedence and corporate social responsibility to communal sustainability. In this regards the first and the foremost thing that they can do is to invest in the CSR activities. This will help in increasing the brand image of the company not only in front of their consumer but also in the minds of their other stakeholders (Jenkins & Dredge, 2016). The company has given priorities to the environmental standards in order to control the climate change for promoting green farming. Hence, the CSR policies moved towards the suppliers have generated sophisticated food products processed in usual way.
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Questions |
Biasness |
Timeliness |
Scope |
Justification |
Gaps in the research |
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Needs and wants of customers from Coles Company |
There is no biasness related to this question as the researcher verify with more resources |
It has accomplished within time frame of 3 months |
It outlines the aims and objectives of the company |
Company should focus on the needs and wants of the customer |
The research gaps are analyzed which helps reader to recognize the implication of the research. It has been found in the context of the research gaps that the data can be data can be collected with the help of primary data in which survey can be conducted to get information. |
|
The quality of the products and services |
There is no biasness in this question |
It has taken 3 months to be completed |
It helps in making good products |
The company attract customers by providing them number of variety in products at one place where customer do not require to move outside for purchasing different products. |
|
|
Reasons behind false advertisement at Coles |
Selection bias is done in this question |
It has been completed within 4 months |
The scope of this question is broader because it provided causes behind false advertisements |
To protect declining image in the market |
|
|
Misled customers by adopting false advertisement |
Review finding with peers |
3 months have been taken to research this question |
It would be helpful in defining the way of misleading by the company |
To help in preventing company towards potential concerns |
|
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Consequences of false advertisement at Coles |
There is no biasness in this question |
3 months have been taken to research this question |
It would be facilitated in finding the results of false advertisement at Coles |
To elaborate the results of false advertisement |
|
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Initiative taken by Coles in improving brand image |
Review finding with peers |
4 months have been taken to research this question |
The scope of this question is broad as it helps in analyzing the initiative by the company. |
This will help in increasing the brand image of the company not only in front of their consumer but also in the minds of their other stakeholders. |
References
Balough, C. D. (2012). A survey of false advertising in cyberspace. Bus. Law., 68, 297.
Bradley, M. &Marshall, H. (2013). Misleading advertising update: hot cross regulator sues Coles for half-baked claims. Retrieved from https://www.marquelawyers.com.au/assets/ccln-29-1.pdf
Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd. (2016). Coles: 2016 Years in Review. Retrieved from https://www.coles.com.au/~/media/files/coles/pdfs/2016/annual%20report/coles_year_in_review_2016.pdf needs and wants of Coles’ customers
Daugeliene, R. &Liepinyte, M. (2012). Interrelation of Misleading Advertising and Solutions of Consumers: Legal Regulation and Institutional Background in Lithuania. European Integration Studies, 6, 192-201.
Dillbary, J. S. (2009). Trademarks as a media for false advertising. Cardozo L. Rev., 31, 327.
Grewal, D., Roggeveen, A.L. & Nordfalt, J. (2017). The Future of Retailing. Journal of Retailing, 93(1), 1-6.
Heffernan, M. & Han, E. (2015). Coles hit with $2.5 million fine over ‘fresh’ bread. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/coles-hit-with-25-million-fine-over-fresh-bread-20150410-1mi0x1.html
Jeeva, C. (2016). Impact of Misleading Advertisements: Issues and Remedies. Bonfring International Journal of Industrial Engineering and management Science, 6(4), 155-157.
Jenkins, J., & Dredge, D. (2016). ‘Huelva, the Light’: Enlightening the Process of Branding and Place Identity Development. In Stories of Practice: Tourism Policy and Planning. Routledge.
Lewis, T., & Huber, A. (2015). A revolution in an eggcup? Supermarket wars, celebrity chefs and ethical consumption. Food, Culture & Society, 18(2), 289-307.
Temporal, P. (2011). Advanced brand management: Managing brands in a changing world. John Wiley & Sons.
Wu, J. H., Neal, B., Trevena, H., Crino, M., Stuart-Smith, W., Faulkner-Hogg, K. & Dunford, E. (2015). Are gluten-free foods healthier than non-gluten-free foods? An evaluation of supermarket products in Australia. British Journal of Nutrition, 114(3), 448-454.
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