If you didn't notice the footage of their product warehouses, their supermarket shelves, their company-branded semi-trailers - let alone one of their corporate executives on the final judging panel - then Woolworths would be mightily disappointed.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For as the "official partner" of Ten's new show Recipe to Riches, the supermarket giant has taken cross-promotional television to a whole new level in Australia.
Just when we thought Curtis Stone's recipe cards were a cute idea at Coles, let alone the appearance on shelves of quirky foods and cooking products linked to major shows such as My Kitchen Rules and MasterChef, along comes this television show which puts a major supermarket itself front and centre of the narrative. It reveals the creation, marketing and testing of products from an initial idea to their place on the shelves.
It is an interesting behind-the-scenes concept, yes. Is it also a chance to flog the supermarket's brand repeatedly? Yes, yes, yes, yes.
There had to be a few Coles executives feeling a little nervous in front of their television screens last night, because Recipe to Riches is a major offensive in the all-out supermarket wars. Any marketing expert couldn't help but admire Woolworths' brazen step onto prime-time television, with advertorial-style content which is both slick and entertaining.
In its favour the Ten show has a strong and likeable cast of judges - centred around charismatic entrepreneur Caroline Creswell (who sells her products through a certain supermarket chain starting with W), advertising expert David Nobay (a good discovery for TV with his warm wit) and chef Darren Robertson.
Based on a successful Canadian format, the premise of Recipe to Riches is simple: people pitch a recipe idea to the major supermarket in the hope they will score a store contract (and $100,000 in prize money) as the overall winner.
Each week a finalist is chosen (they win $10,000) and their product appears on Woolworths' shelves the morning after the show.
That means the winning product on screen on Tuesday night, made by an Italian mum named Concetta (Connie for short) is for sale right now.
On the debut episode, the competition came down to a contest between a self-confessed couch potato's potato bake (described by Nobay as food similar to "tracky daks") and Concetta's croquettes (which she shortened to "croqs" because of confusion among test audiences about croquette being a food or a sport). But we need not mention anything more about the specific product - the show itself did that a multitude of times.
Perhaps most Australian viewers are increasingly savvy about blatant TV marketing and smart enough to make up their own minds about it.
Some may say it is no different to watching a talent show such as The Voice and downloading a track from iTunes straight after the show.
But it seems not so long ago television audiences were genuinely taken aback by such blatant cross-promotion, particularly when MasterChef first aired on television, but there now almost seems to be an acceptance that openly plugging brands comes with the territory, particularly with food shows.
Whether or not viewers are tired of it is a different story. When a program such as Recipe to Riches feels like one long advertisement, people are much more inclined to reach for their remote control. As consumers of television, they have every right.
