And yet again we’re having a “newsworthy” week here at The Value Engineers.

Our senior consultant Ned Colville comments in today’s published Marketing Week article “I love brands” by Joe Fernandez (2 July 2009, pages 16-20) which talks about technology and electronics companies ditching their gadget-led campaigns and instead taking their brand values to the consumer. A move from a functional product led strategy to a more emotional engaging strategy.

Here is a little extract of Ned’s contribution to the article:

Earlier this week our Director of Branding, Giles Lury commented in the article ‘Riders on the Storm’ written by James Ball and published in The Grocer (27 June 2009, pages 36-40). This article discusses that despite the bad economic conditions, the major FMCG suppliers (OC&G Global 50 ranking) delivered impressive growth.

Giles discusses:

Watch the space for more of our thinking in the news.

Drum roll please…an Aston Martin you can buy for £20,000. Unfortunately underneath it’s a £10,000 Toyota.
 
The ultimate luxury supercar, the brand I once most wanted to own and was even proposed to in, has just made the most audacious move in brand extensions. You may have thought the Cayenne frog-like 4 x 4 (which is really underneath a VW Touareg) was a dangerous move by Porsche, but at least they kept to luxury and status. But did you even think that Bond might be seen in the big sister of this…

 
Why, you might ask, would Aston Martin want to risk their status and elite credentials with this? The experts hypothesise;
 
1. To lower their average CO2 to meet EU emissions targets (Aston Martin are no longer owned by Ford so can’t average it out using lower-emission cars such as Fiestas)

2. Because they are struggling to make money in the teeth of a recession 

3. It’s 2009 and all you make is thirsty big-engined, luxury sports cars, whilst the world is getting excited about hybrids and electric cars..
 
So will revamping the Toyota iQ work? Well BMW’s Mini Cooper is still going strong, and Mercedes were eventually successful with Smart, but neither of them did it with such blatant exploitation of their current brand equity, neither used their hard earned design cues with their premium badge on the front! This is unique, no one’s done this before. In the words of motoring journalist Colin Goodwin, “This is the Rolling Stones cutting an album of choral music and being serious about it” .
 
Ferrari wouldn’t do it. In the early seventies they launched the ‘cheap’ Dino, with no trace of the Ferrari brand logo or name. It had its own unique Dino brand identity.

We watch and wait for Cygnet to sink or swim at it’s launch next year!

This weeks focus is on the relaunch of Scrumpy Jack Cider. Jygsaw Brands (subsidiary of Scottish and Newcastle) gave JKR a brief to help emphasise the brand’s heritage. The old design, for your reference is here:

“We have returned to an earlier colour palette, reintroducing a lot of green to the can and steering it away from the creams that it has been using more recently,” says JKR chief executive Andy Knowles. “The new can also features an illustration that is intended to evoke the crack of leather on willow.”

In a further effort to push its heritage, the new can makes a feature of Scrumpy Jack’s relationship with brewers Hereford Symonds Cider Presses since 1727. 

In my opinion? Not a bad job! The colours create a fresh feel to the design which marries well with cold refeshing cider. The two glasses(?) look a bit like cider goggles though! Maybe this is a good thing!?

I feel the JKR have pushed the heritage cues as far as they can within the un-whimsical limitations of the product format, whilst retaining a quirky contemporary execution. 
 
Particularly like the intelligent use of cream to the top of the product and very clever use of negative space by the designer. The sliced apple core shape within the negative used for the window is very cool little nod to the visually astute. The effect is compounded by two strategically placed leaves as apple pips.

The new can rolls out to off-licenses and supermarkets from late June.