Coles have enlisted boy band One Direction for a new campaign that will see the supermarket chain give away over 10,000 tickets to the group's exclusive Sydney concert in October.
The competition, which opens tomorrow, requires fans (well, fans' legal guardians, really, and that weird category of women in their 30s who love Harry Styles) to purchase a specially marked One Direction item, head to the website and enter their receipt number into the grid. But perhaps we should let the boys explain it to you:
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The promotion follows hot on the heels of the supermarket chain's widely lambasted 'Down Down' campaign, the one that forever linked '70s rockers Status Quo and big red fingers in the minds of a generation.
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Coles appears to be trapped in a rapidly escalating arms race, using obnoxious musicians to push their thoroughly non-musical products. It's a strategy that doesn't appear to make any goddamn sense, because they only have two real competitors, and it's not as though Woolworths and Aldi are firing back at them with Supertramp and Janoskian promotions in a display of mutually assured destruction.
At a stretch, their only other competition is IGA, and they're content to put their eggs in Anh Do's basket — perhaps not Australia's funniest comedian, but obviously a lovely guy, and certainly not someone you'd want to hit in the groin with a shoe.
Why, then, is Coles so insistent on their scorched earth policy? Why can't they put whatever money they're giving One Direction towards making their products cheaper?
Cheap Tim Tams — that's what makes you beautiful, Coles.
