August 8, 2012 
Update: Woolworths has replied and won the award for worst ever corporate response in the history of worst ever corporate responses. Read Woolworth’s response and my reaction.
Wandering dreamily through the bountiful aisles of wholesome produce at my local Woolworths last week, I had to pause, take stock, and double check that this was indeed Australia’s fresh food people, and not a sordid porn shop. Like 7-Eleven.
I had stumbled upon a magazine rack displaying the very un-fresh-foodesque Zoo magazine. Surely, I was mistaken. Isn’t Woolworths a place to bring your family? A place where children roam carefree and parents laugh and smile at each other over tangelos and nappy rash cream?
Zoo magazine – mastering the art of subtlety
I took a closer look. The headline on the magazine read ‘A super-sized celebration of boobs’, and was accompanied by a delicately nuanced picture of – you guessed it – boobs. Yes, this was indeed Zoo.
I got to thinking. How could Woolworths, the all smiles, all good-guy grocers, be selling the smut that’s peddled in Zoo? How could this be consistent with Woolworth’s apparent values?
I decided to investigate, and quickly found Woolworth’s publicly accessible code of conduct that binds its employees. Let’s have a look to see what Woolies expects of its staff and how that stacks up against what’s going on inside Zoo.
‘Do not send racial, sexual, defamatory, threatening or obscene messages to any employee or anyone outside the Company.’
Err, sure, but apparently it’s okay to sell them to customers?
Zoo only abandoned this competition after public outcry. The week before, though, it was being promoted through the mag and its re-sellers . . . that’s you Woolworths.
You can’t download this stuff at Woolworths but you sure can sell it!
‘Do not download, retrieve, send or store inappropriate, sexually explicit or racist material on your computer or other Company electronic device.’
Err, sure, but apparently it’s okay to sell it to customers?
‘Do not instigate or distribute ‘junk or chain’ mail that can congest the network and inhibit the free flow of business information.’
Fair enough.
Woolworths loves a good, clean laugh
‘Woolworths Limited also opposes discriminatory, bullying or harassing behaviours such as gestures, language, and the display of electronic or written material and public speeches, in the workplace that unreasonably offends, humiliates or intimidates such as sexual harassment involving inappropriate jokes.‘
Err, think we might have another fail on our hands here.
Woolworths, you cannot appear on our TV screens as a bunch of loveable grocers and sell this sexist, misogynistic rubbish.
Your values and code of conduct are meaningless when this is what you are pushing to your customers. By offering Zoo magazine for sale, you are breaching your own code right here:
‘Woolworths Limited also opposes discriminatory, bullying or harassing behaviours such as gestures, language, and the display of electronic or written material and public speeches, in the workplace that unreasonably offends, humiliates or intimidates such as sexual harassment involving . . . the display of offensive material.’
Is it not enough that we have to be publicly assaulted with this trash every time we buy petrol or duck into a convenience store? Do we really have to suffer through it in your supermarkets as well?
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I have sent this message to Woolworths. Feel free to copy the text and send your own message through Woolworth’s contact page.
Dear Woolworths
Please stop selling Zoo magazine in your supermarkets. It is offensive and misogynistic and has no place in stores full of children.
If one of your staff members was to display Zoo magazine at work or even repeat some of the content therein, they would be breaching your own employee code of conduct. How, then, is it acceptable for you to sell something you would not tolerate from your own staff?
I have posted this letter on my blog and will also post your response.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
Guy Sigley
Update: Woolworths has replied and won the award for worst ever corporate response in the history of worst ever corporate responses. Read Woolworth’s response and my reaction.
Fantastic! Let’s see them wriggle out of that one!
Thank you! I’ll be sure to post any response that comes through.
Completely inappropriate…..yet another reason to avoid the big supermarkets.
Thanks for your comment Jess.
Here is Woolworths resonse:
Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding the display of magazines within Woolworths Supermarkets.
These magazines are widely available across all supermarkets, variety stores, newsagents and many other outlets. It is positioned in the magazine reading centre, in the aisle and has a belly band around the middle of the magazine in all of our stores. This is done to reduce the exposure to our customers of these magazines as we understand that every customer has a different opinion and we respect that it can be offensive to some.
We do also understand that there are many different opinions held by our customers and we will take your comments on board when reviewing our magazine category.
Kind regards,
John
Woolworth’s Customer Service Centre
Thank you – I received a very similar response. Have just posted my reaction to it here: http://wp.me/p2wz7g-3B.
Woolworths has completely missed the point. It’s not just about the display, it’s about selling content totally inconsistent with its own values.
cheers, Guy