Coles and IKEA recruiting through creative promotions

I have gotten into the spirit of ‘consumerism through children’ with the latest of Australian retailer, Coles', collectable series, which is promoting its new Harry Potter range. 

The Coles Magical Builders are cardboard cut-outs of all the characters from the Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts cashcow empires, with the catch (for grown-ups) is you have to assemble them yourself. They come separately swathed in tiny tough cardboard flatpacks with instructions for their assembly on a tiny piece of paper. It’s like miniature IKEA. The instructions are impossible to see and also not terribly helpful but I am also impressed that they produce so little paper wastage.

With a resolve to demonstrate that I have the dexterity and cognitive function of a six year old, I decided to put one together. As it turns out, only tiny fingers can pop out the tiny cardboard fragments of arms and legs and owl wings and wizard beards. 

As ever with activities that are designed for children, I generally require child supervision to work out how to troubleshoot, but not on this occasion! I stabbed those diminutive suckers out using a sharp kitchen knife.

I’m guessing Coles aren’t considering my requirements in their customer base. Speaking of IKEA and companies that know their base, the Swedish megabrand have recently put “career instructions” inside their IKEA products that are labelled “how to assemble your furniture” in a push to recruit people who use IKEA products, which resulted in thousands of applicants and a whole bunch of people were hired who liked and used IKEA products. Hire your brand’s current customers and ambassadors  – good idea. What would also be a good idea would be to put in these boxes ‘how to actually assemble your furniture – like, some actual instructions”. Anyway.

So perhaps, with that in mind, and with the ol’ tradie shortage around areas of Australia that aren’t currently undertaking emergency disaster restorations, Coles perhaps should be looking for future tradies and engineers through this current tiny cardboard promotion. 

If you can assemble the tiny Ron Weasley character without the instructions (or even with the instructions) and you’re only seven, of if can assemble it to put Dumbledore’s head on his knees (but deliberately), then you have just won yourself a fast-tracked carpentry career. Very fast-tracked. Faster than a speeding Japanese superman bullet train. Anyway, there’s some foods for your thoughts, Coles. 

Cinema advertising and the leading genres in movie blockbusters

If you spend a while in the foyer of a major cinema you’ll notice that the movie-making industry really applies itself to the cause of persuading you to buy things, and its efforts are quite productive. 

The ice creamery promotes peace, love and ice cream, with a deeply held predilection that you just buy the ice cream. I feel the need, the need to buy ice cream (an artistic depiction of an iconic Top Gun quote for the two people in the world who may have not seen the cult classic).

The good old fashioned games machines work the room entertaining young children as they contest game after game. People are buying popcorn in ten litre buckets overpowered with butter on the inside and movie marketing on the outside. Even the cinema advertiser advertises itself on a wall monitor. It’s the hustle. 

Some patrons stand back, deep in group negotiations, staring at the electronic boards assessing movies times, personal schedules, movie lengths. They are doing maths. Maths is hard and fraught with danger and should be rewarded with popcorn. Cinemas know this. Two people bolt through the foyer with popcorn. They are late for the start of their movie, but they at least have popcorn, and considerable balance and coordination.

And then the foyer falls quiet. Quiet enough for a moment to hear distant reverberations from cinematic enthusiasm and you can feel the aftershocks through the floor if you are close enough to the action. A cinema foyer is an entertainment gateway and an advertiser's dream.

A movie has finished! Patrons trickle out, gesturing with vast hand movements and excitedly recreating and refashioning portions of the movie script. It undoubtedly was Top Gun: Maverick. Someone alert Tom Cruise; the fans have gone wild. Don’t worry – I think he knows.

His movie has just clocked over USD$1.1 billion of box office sales. It currently sits at the 29th highest grossing film of all time, but likely to crawl higher up that list. Since opening globally in May/June this year, his movie has 51% share of the U.S domestic and worldwide markets, which means folks are heading out in droves to see Tom and his planes.

I feel the need, the need to see this movie.

In movie blockbuster terms, you could reason that  the action genre (encapsulating tales of utter and colossal disaster and Thor) would hold supreme, with the highest gross film of all time (Avatar), the Jurassic series, the Avengers and all manner of other super heroes and now Top Gun in its stables. But this isn’t the case. 

 

Market share for movie genres from 1995-2022 shows that adventure has actually been the number one genre, followed by action, drama  and comedy.

The adventure genre is heavily dominated by distributors Walt Disney and 20^th Century Fox, who are both unrelenting in exploiting their legendary cash cows that include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Hunger Games, Toy Story, Pirates of the Carribean. 

However, at the mid mark of the 2022, it is indeed the action genre (57% of market share) that is leading the pack in blockbusters, with adventure (19%) straggling in its wake. Maybe it’s more Covid-19 fallout, with less adventure movies being made during the last few years. 

Alas, for your noting, if you are thinking of directing an educational movie, please know it traditionally earns 0% market share. Maybe lob some fighter planes in there and email Mark Ruffalo to see if he’s available for a cameo.