So there were a couple of reasons. You are all close to being on the money with one of them. They wanted people to experience service from people who were actual locals. It’s not just about coming into store, but even having your call answered by someone who lives in your area where possible. The idea is it creates better, more genuine rapport. And it helps with things like local knowledge. Eg. Knowing the local private hospital doesn’t have an Emergency. Customers feel more connected and it’s a better experience, setting us apart from a service perspective. It’s also been about employee engagement. Creating opportunities for staff in that local area to run like their own little business to service their community. a bit lore of a self managed teams model which can help remove lots of layers of management. Also staff can chip in and cover busy times either in store or on phones and add more variety to their work. (If you’ve ever worked in call centres you’ll know it can be pretty awful). So it was a multi pronged strategy about customer experience, employee experience and no doubt cost savings. Because let’s be real, that’s always important these days.

I can’t find one, but I always love I Love Creatives’ ads. They feel so niche and different. And always grab my attention with something random and some humour.

Comedian Lizzie Hoo does this sketch about her Dad (a mechanic) picking up business with an interesting tactic that doesn’t require traditional advertising. Posted the skit below. https://youtu.be/AK0OXkJNrJ0?si=3mXmqHN_15aTbDlL It’s still relationship marketing though. I think you can build a business without advertising, but not without some form of marketing. But marketing can be meeting people face to face and telling them what you do, as much as it can be a social media campaign.

Building on the smell idea, maybe it’s a form of associative trigger marketing/associative cueing. They want people to begin to associate having/smelling a sausage to Bunnings. So when folks are having a BBQ on a Saturday or Sunday (prime DIY time) they think hmmm, maybe I’ll head to Bunnings today.

She’s not an accountant, but this made me think of Emma Edwards who’s I’d say like a money influencer. Her podcast is The Broke Generation and her book is good with money. She’s built a huge profile for herself and a career out of teaching young women particularly to be good with money. She focuses on stuff that’s relatable and uses tactics like running challenges that are quite audience specific (like not buying any new clothes for 6 months). Which she does herself first. It’s the classic influencer tactic of ‘I tried this thing on myself and look how good it is’. Only her thing is usually some kind of money psychology or saving hack. You trust her advice because she shares how it’s transformed her own life. An accountant could basically take her playbook and roll with it.