This article is written in the hopes of stimulating accountability, not just for Woolworths but for all “brands”.
Don’t get me wrong it is not only Woolworths that behaves this way but they remind me of the Catholic Church in that they preach the loudest and act the purest. I’m not saying Woolworths are into paedophilia but that they practise virtue signalling aka marketing without living up to their empty promises.
In my book it questionable that they are force for good in the world no matter how boldly they attempt to emblazon that in the media and your mind.
Their Advertised Values!?
- CUSTOMER FIRST – Make every moment memorable
- QUALITY – Live it every day, in every way
- INSPIRATION – Discover the difference
- IN TOUCH – Be relevant, accessible, on trend
- RESPONSIBILITY – Do the right thing, the right way
- INTEGRITY – Do what you say, say what you mean
- COLLABORATION – Work and grow together
I didn’t number them, that is the way Woolworths state them. Only marketers would number values as though they can be ordered in order of importance.
Ironic that they did not put “make a profit” on that list as it is their primary motive or that of any company.
Hypocrisy Definition
1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.
[Middle English ipocrisie, from Old French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, play-acting, pretense, from Greek hupokrisis, from hupokrīnesthai, to play a part, pretend : hupo-, hypo- + krīnesthai, to explain, middle voice of krīnein, to decide, judge; see krei- in Indo-European roots.]
Good Business Journey
https://www.woolworthsholdings.co.za/sustainability/our-good-business-journey/
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“If you are giving back, you took too much.” – Ricardo Semler
Giving back is virtue signalling, where do you think the money came from that Woolworths are giving back. Its customers, those people it says it cares about so much it is giving back some of what it took.
IF you take a look at the Wayback Machine you’ll see they also used to say “Save 500 billion litres of water by 2020”, is that no longer important or relevant? By the way it is not really saving but rather wasting less or consuming less. You can’t get to saving through negative consumption.
A number of these claims/dreams are for 2020. Did you succeed Woolworths?
Packaging Source
Surely I should be able to drop off all the packaging I have left from my Woolworths shopping back at Woolworths. this would be a sure fire way to stop them generating as much waste as they would be semi responsible for dealing with it instead of lumping the issue on society as a whole.
Greenwashing
But when companies invest more time and money on marketing their products or brand as “green” rather than actually doing the hard work to ensure that it is sustainable — this is called greenwashing.
Cambridge Dictionary says greenwashing is designed “to make people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is.”