National brand. Community Connection.

Coles

Since 2017, Hunter has been engaged by Coles to generate media coverage throughout Western Australia around the company’s community initiatives, supermarket openings and refurbishments, staff achievements and partnerships with local suppliers.

Coles relies on Hunter’s strong relationships with local print, radio, and TV media to ensure its key messages are shared and communities are aware of local events and initiatives. In addition, Hunter is tasked with generating quality on-message media coverage on new product launches, cost of living benefits, ambassadors, and key events.

The Objectives

• Generate positive media coverage for all WA stores​.

• Generate brand awareness of Coles’ community and fundraising initiatives.

• Position Coles as a leading employer of WA locals.

• Obtain media coverage on new product launches.

• Assist with the recruitment with suitable ambassadors.

• Create media opportunities to highlight staff achievements.

• Initiate media coverage on store events and campaigns.

The Strategy

Hunter works closely with Coles to develop strong, newsworthy angles pertaining to local events, milestones and key achievements of stores and individual team members. We have developed strong relationships with local media outlets to tell Coles’ national stories at a local level, providing insight into their relevance and importance for the broader WA community.

• Proactively reach out to stores for long-serving team members and store-specific initiatives to craft biographical stories of interest to local media.

• Tailor pitches of Coles’ community initiatives to provide newsworthy angles for media outlets covering specific regions within WA and Perth.

• Engage TV media to attend consumer events when needed at Coles stores and provide on-the-ground support to the national Coles team.

• Generate media coverage across WA for Coles community initiatives, supermarket openings and refurbishments, staff achievements and partnerships with local suppliers.

• Work with Coles suppliers to draft local supplier stories.

The Results

Over the past four years Hunter has exceeded its set KPIs for pieces of coverage, percentage of stores featured in media coverage and stories on Coles team members’ achievements.

Outcomes have included:

• Widespread media coverage achieved for Coles' community initiatives, including fundraising for Redkite and Second Bite, outcomes for Coles Little Athletics, delivery of sports equipment to primary school students across the state via Sports for Schools and indigenous pre-employment program case studies.

• In 2020 Hunter achieved more than 150 items of media coverage for Coles on its community initiatives and events.

• Metro media coverage from The West Australian (Inside Cover), The Sunday Times, Channel 7, Channel 9 and Community News Group, as well as online and radio.

• Regional coverage from ABC Country, RedFM, Triple M, The Geraldton Guardian, Farm Weekly, Countryman and Busselton Dunsborough Mail.

• Activation and event support.