Who's really to blame?

When Woolworths launched their Aussie Animal cards, I reacted like a typical teenager - rolled my eyes and smirked.  Surely a lame old fashioned campaign like this would never work!  Haven't they done their market research?  Kids are simply not interested in anything that it is not digitized.

Boy was I wrong!  This campaign turned out to be a resounding success.  It captured the attention of Aussie kids in a big way.  For starters, the timing was perfect:  it started just before all the sporting grand finals and peaked during the holidays.

Another factor contributing to the success was the "Swap Days" organized by Woolworths.  Children were encouraged to come into the shopping centres to swap around cards with other interested children.

The third stroke of genius was the albums that could be bought to store the cards.  These albums not only housed the cards, but also provided various activities for the kids.  Unfortunately one of these activities brought the whole campaign in disarray for some parents.


A swearword was hiding in a find-a-word game and low and behold quite a few of the children found it.  Some parents were outraged that Woolworths did not pick this up during the proofreading process. 

My take on the situation is that these games are randomly generated and at most you would ensure that all the words you ask the child to find are actually present.  What bothers me more is that a seven year old child actually knows how to spell the swearword!  Should we really be blaming Woolworths or should we be pointing the finger of blame closer to home?


Alternatively we could have a quiet chuckle and know that stuff-ups happen to the best laid out plans of mice and men . . .