Battlelines drawn as Myer launches Rosemary Ryan & Sarah Plaskitt
COLES Myer today kicked off its advertising campaign around the dumping of its Grace Bros brand and its relaunch as Myer, as rival David Jones continued its aggressive push to take advantage of the move to kill off the NSW shopping icon.
Myer launched with major press ads in The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald introducing the new Myer with the headline “Sydney this is for you” and the tagline “My New Store”. The ads also ran regionally in Dubbo, Newcastle, Wagga Wagga, Orange and Wollongong papers but with “Sydney” replaced by the appropriate regional centre.
The Daily Telegraph ran a “special edition” around the launch with a false front cover of today’s newspapers that featured a front page pic of the new face of Myer, supermodel Carmen Kass, a story given exclusively to The Telegraph.
Inside the wrap was a double page spread of pictures from the relaunch of the former Grace Bros flagship store in Sydney’s CBD yesterday.
The full page ads in shocking pink featured a quote from Myer managing director Dawn Robertson, “Today, February 13, Myer becomes a national brand across Australia. Join us as we celebrate this exciting new era”.
Meanwhile David Jones has stepped up its activity. Soon after Coles Myer confirmed the demise of the Grace Bros brand it began rolling out a major press campaign with daily full page ads featuring staff from its stores as well as focusing on its designer fashion offering.
Myer will follow up today’s launch with the rollout of a new national TVC on Sunday to promote its new fashion season.
It will feature a Myer fashion buyer travelling the world to centres including Milan and London, as well as Australian designer Wayne Cooper. The tagline will begin in NSW as “My New Store Myer” but after a week will adopt the national “My store Myer”.
The DJ’s campaign that has been running heavily in newspapers this week is aimed at underlining the high service levels and designer brands that David Jones is renowned for, according to Saatchi & Saatchi’s Team Saatchi managing director Sharon Skeggs
"We wanted to reinforce our strength in those areas. We wanted to make a very important statement about the brand and we wanted it to have an impact," Skeggs said.
The timing of the campaign, straight after the Myer announcement, was also designed to remind customers of David Jones' heritage in New South Wales.
“It was an important time to remind people of that," Skeggs said.
