Woolworths ready for ‘aggressive’ Xmas push

Watch out Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s: Woolworths has promised to outspend its supermarket rivals in a bid to be crowned entertainment king this Christmas.

And the general retailer has promised an ‘aggressive’ focus on games in its marketing – which recently became a bigger moneyspinner for the firm than either CD or DVD.

The firm recently released its third Big Red Book catalogue, which contained the most games coverage and advertising yet.

The chain’s trading manager for games Gerry Berkley told MCV: We’re being quite aggressive. Games is now our biggest entertainment format, bigger than DVD or music. That’s in terms of both revenues and sales. That’s been consistent over the summer, so we want to keep it up during this quarter.”

And Woolies’ spokesperson Daniel Himsworth added:
I would have thought we will certainly spend more on entertainment than the supermarkets as we hit the holiday.”

Berkley also revealed that in-store games space had been increased by 25 per cent this year, and added: Our games marketing will include TV and press – consumer mags as well as national media. You’ll see a large increase on last year.”