Tokmanni Group strives to communicate
about its sustainability work in an
understandable, consistent, and trustworthy
way, in good faith and without exaggeration.
The Group appreciates its stakeholders’
interest in sustainability as well as their
willingness to share their ideas on how to
improve the Group and its operations. For
example, surveys, media and social media
monitoring, and everyday conversations
help to understand the perspectives of the
stakeholders. In its communications about
sustainability, the Group focuses not only
on its ability to combine low prices with
responsible sourcing-related expectations,
requirements, and policies but also on social
responsibility.
In 2023, Tokmanni shared information on
topics such as sustainable sourcing, climate
work, food waste, monitoring the sale of age-restricted products, and a variety discount
retailer as a workplace and a responsible
youth employer. Tokmanni also participated in
several campaigns by the Finnish Commerce
Federation and the Finnish Grocery
Federation as well as continued to support the
meaningful work of the MIELI Mental Health
Finland, the John Nurminen Foundation, and
Hurstinapu charity, among others. Dollarstore
has built a long-term cooperation with the
Stockholm City Mission, in which Dollarstore
donates product samples to the organisation
for them to sell and keep the profits. The
Stockholm City Mission sells these product
samples and receives the sales profits. The
Stockholm City Mission is an organisation
helping vulnerable people. They work to break
alienation, fight homelessness and support
people in difficult life situations.
When communicating about sustainability,
the Group focuses especially on digital
channels. Stakeholders also receive relevant
information about sustainability from the
Group’s employees, advertisements, and store
announcements, for instance. In addition,
Tokmanni’s customer loyalty programme,
Tokmanni Klubi, plays an increasingly
important role in customer communication.
For example, in 2023, Tokmanni launched its
Tokmanni mobile application. Internally, the
Group’s companies are using intranet, internal
social media channel, personnel magazine,
mobile app, and various bulletins, for instance.
These channels vary by store chain.
Tokmanni Group has clear goals for
sustainable communications
Tokmanni Group follows good marketing
practices and wants to help its Nordic
customers make well-founded purchasing
decisions by, for example, providing relevant
product information. At the same time, the
Group and its store chains stand out for
impressive, memorable, and often hilarious
marketing content.
The Group strives to avoid its retail chain’s
marketing being subject to review by the
Finnish Council of Ethics in Advertising,
the Danish Consumer Ombudsman or the
Swedish Advertising Ombudsman. In Finland
and Denmark, the Group reached this goal in
2023.
In Sweden, a marketing campaign called
“Welcome to hell”, which was implemented by
Dollarstore between weeks 39 and 41 in 2023,
was reported to the Swedish Advertising
Ombudsman (Reklamombudsmannen
in Swedish, abbreviated RO) and the
Swedish Advertising Ombudsman’s Jury
(Reklamombudsmannens Opinionsnämnd
in Swedish, abbreviated Jury RON) by
three individuals. These reports led to an
investigation into whether the campaign
should be considered discriminatory towards
people who adhere to a religion in which
“hell” is depicted. The Swedish Advertising
Ombudsman, a self-regulatory organisation,
stated that the advertisement was not
designed offensively and was therefore not
in breach of Article 1 of the International
Chamber of Commerce’s Code of Advertising
and Commercial Communications. In 2023,
no other violations of laws or voluntary
principles related to marketing were reported
by the Group.
In Finland, the Group’s stores received
a total of 13 complaints from regional state
administrative agencies and health and
hygiene inspectors (2022: 6) in 2023. The
complaints concerned price labels and
quantity discounts for alcohol products,
documents concerning alcohol and tobacco
product sales, verifications of scales, points of
sales and displays of tobacco products, and
displays of nicotine replacement products.
None of these resulted in fines or official
warnings.