Spotlight - stop hustling

With Mother's Day coming up it's time for this iconic Australian brand to come into the 21st century and change its ways.

Recently, there was a Head of Marketing role at Spotlight and excitedly I applied for this position. When I received the news a few days ago that my application had been unsuccessful, I thought that I would reflect on what I would have done if this iconic Australian brand had hired me as their Head of Marketing.

This article is my observations as a marketer with over a decade of experience in the industry and experience working with similar brands. I wish the best for whomever is now in this position at Spotlight and hopefully, they will read this article!

To put my views into context let's take take a look at the origin story of this brand. Spotlight had very humble beginnings after the Fried family, like many other immigrants set up a stall in the Victoria Market in the 1950s. The founders of Spotlight brothers Morrie and Ruben worked at this stall in the 1970s.

If you have ever been to the Queen Victoria Market or any market in Australia, especially on a Saturday or Sunday evening, you would know the hustle that goes on. A bag of apples for a dollar, a tray of meat for $10, a cheeky buy one get one free for a borek. These are some of the bargains that I have experienced at the markets. There is both chaos and magic in the madness of the market hustle!

But Spotlight is not a market stall anymore, instead, the first Spotlight store outside of the Victoria Market stall was set up in 1973 in Malvern, Victoria, and since this time the Fried family has gone on to establish hundreds of Spotlight stores across the country, spurred on by demand for fabrics, clothing patterns, home goods and DIY.

By the 1990s the Fried family had established themselves as one of the richest families in Australia with a regular appearance on the Australian Financial Review's rich list.

If you visit a Spotlight store in 2024 you will still see the connection to a market stall. Here are some images that I found online of the inside of a Spotlight:

Now compare this to stalls at the Victoria Market:

As you can see the vibe is not actually that different to a market stall.

The marketing and communications of Spotlight is also all over the place. Firstly, there is a lot of it. However, they have low levels of followers and engagement on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, which should be their mainstay when it comes to social media with many posts receiving under 100 likes, and often, no comments.

While DIY content on social media can receive millions of views and likes, the fact that their images are generic and out of touch with the Australian market makes it hard for anyone to view this brand in an authentic light on social media. For Mother's Day recently there was a post on their Instagram that showed how to create a DIY candle. The issue with this post was that it was clearly taken from an American creator or brand with the candle brightly displaying "Mom" instead of Mum.

While excuses could be made for brands that have come into the Australian market for creating content such as this, Spotlight does not have any excuses - it's an Australian brand through and through.

Their website is no better it looks like any typical eCommerce template with little originality and showcasing of key products. The images are uninspired and are often simply photography that the manufacturers or distributors of the products they stock would have taken:

The inside of a Spotlight often features bright yellow pieces of paper stuck to shelves highlighting specials This also extends to the website. Look at the home page and all the specials:

And there's also specials for Mother's Day:

It's all very overwhelming and confusing.

While you may be thinking that well Spotlight is a successful company it does not need to change. The thing is that it does. For anyone who has worked in the retail industry post-pandemic, you will know that it is tough and there have been many businesses that have already collapsed or have experienced a significant downturn in sales.

Before the pandemic, we saw the emergence of the importance of customer experience design when it comes to both brick-and-mortar and digital retail. This seems to have been forgotten by many retailers as they focus on eCommerce as a way to bring in sales. However, having been a marketer that recently had to shut down an eCommerce store, it's not a magic bullet. What works is a brand showcasing what it has that is of value above everything else.

Given its success and heritage, as a marketer, I can't help but think that Spotlight in 2024 is operating like a market stall. The tactics it deploys through its marketing channels are not dissimilar to what a market trader in 2024 would do. The issue is that Spotlight is a large retailer, and the chaos and hustle of a market stall which often has multiple family members working together, whether they like it or not to make some money and survive is not the position that Spotlight is in in 2024.

If I were their Head of Marketing, I would instead look to employ a similar strategy to what Kmart has put in place, focusing on upping the aesthetics and customer experience of the brand to take it out of the market stall "bargain" style approach establishing a distinct personality of the brand rather than a distinct presence.

Why? Firstly because their primary audience is Australian mums. Australian mums are savvy shoppers who value looking great and know when things are authentic:

While there would be market research to be done on establishing linkages between Spotlight and this audience, I do think that right now, Spotlight is not tapping into the hearts and minds of these women. Instead, it's hustling like a giant market stall to these women hoping that one of their items of sale is the one that they want right now.

Spotlight needs to start pulling customers into its stores rather than pushing messages to them. The heritage and goodwill that Spotlight has created with Australians over the years is not currently being captured in its marketing. Spotlight is a place that most Australians growing up would have visited with their mothers, there is a deep connection with the home, DIY and being creative and authentic. The brand origin story is also such an inspiration for immigrants such as myself, surely that can also be woven into how it markets itself?

It also needs to look at creative ways to do marketing - visual merchandise, events, activations, partnerships, engaging content, and digital marketing that are effectively tracked and measured. There's a lot of work to be done in doing these things well.

Marketing for Spotlight should be heartfelt, it should be inspiring, fun and most of all, authentic tapping into what it means to be a woman in the 21st century.

Spotlight please stop hustling like you are a market stall, you don't need to do this. Come into the 21st Century and embrace marketing that focuses on tapping into your true brand essence.

Like how I think? If you would like to hire me as your Head of Marketing/ General Manager of Marketing/Marketing and Communications Manager/ Sessional or guest Lecturer/ Speaker please message me via LinkedIn