Trademarking a shape of a product, or proving that a competitor is passing off their product as your own, is not easy. A high-profile settlement, though, is marketing gold.
We surveyed over 100 Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and independent stores around Australia and found supermarkets are promoting unhealthy food much more often, and more prominently, than healthier products.
Staying separate.
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Supermarkets have been hit by multiple disruptions in the past couple of decades and they are struggling to survive.
The on-paper designs for furniture belong to the designer, just like any other artists. But things get more complicated when designs become physical objects.
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Coles plans to compete with competitors by moving away from low prices to a focus on other attributes, such as sustainability, local produce and community.
‘Parasitic’ or copycat brands which mimic famous names are creating a market place of their own but they are treading on thin ice when it comes to copyright and intellectual property law.
Aldi’s decidedly Germanic expansion strategy continues to eat into Woolworths’ earnings.
AAP/Lukas Coch
John Rice, University of New England and Nigel Martin, Australian National University
For consumers of Australia’s retail sector, choice and convenience will continue to emerge. For incumbents unable to deliver on these outcomes, the future is bleak.
Aldi has mastered the phantom product, even though customers know it’s not a brand in disguise.
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Some of the bigger grocery retailers are moving away from convenience stores because of increased costs, difficulties reading the market and cannibalisation.
Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci has an unenviable task.
AAP Image/David Moir
Woolworths’ move to rebrand its private labels may lead to no points of difference for customers between supermarket products except price, where Aldi is strongest.
The big supermarkets, Woolworths and Coles, will need to think of new strategies to compete with new chains such as Aldi which continue to steal market share.