German discount supermarket Lidl gave Australia’s big three chains – Coles, Woolies and Aldi – rather a lot of disquiet last week by trademarking 500 brand names here.
And while Lidl insists it has no current plans to mess with the status quo, there were also rumours it has been investigating logistics and distribution options in Australia. Lidl has, however, just launched in the US.
And while Australia obsessed over Lidl’s international scale of operations and foreign market know-how, its popularity (ranked more likeable in Britain than Twitter among 18-24 year olds) and its very low prices, Lidl’s attention was in Cannes, where it was showing the world its marketing clout by winning a Gold Lion in Direct/ Strategy/ Retention at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the marketing industry’s “Olympics”.
The campaign was built around a packaging idea by Lidl’s Swedish advertising agency Ingo.
It was triggered by a Facebook post by an ordinary Swede, Bosse Elfgren. Bosse had asked Lidl Sweden why he should drink German milk, believing that Lidl’s milk is imported from Germany.
Lidl replied by renaming all of its Angens milk Bosse’s Milk. The company had all the cartons redesigned, adding Bosse’s avatar and question as well as Lidl’s personal reply, explaining that their Angens private label has been 100 per cent Swedish since 2010.
Lidl then supported the idea with a TV commercial, a full page advertisement in newspapers and an aerial ad. Lidl flew an airplane over Bosse’s house with a banderol that read: “Bosse, we DO have Swedish milk!”
Watch the Bosse’s Milk case study video here:
