Lou Ellerton, senior consultant at The Value Engineers, comments in pitchcreative on pitch’s top ten royal wedding campaigns.

Lou thinks that John Smith’s royal wedding commemorative paper plate is a great little way of gently poking fun at the wedding.

She has a more critical view on Tate & Lyle Royal Icing Sugar though: “It’s a sweet thought, but it doesn’t achieve anything. It seems to be piggybacking on the spirit of things without reasserting its values.”

“No fair” M&S has squealed at cheeky high street retailer Ann Summers’ use of their “Your M&S” logo to publicise a bank holiday deal offering shoppers a “main” item, a “side”, and a “dessert” in exchange for £29 in a racy homage to the M&S £10 deal.

Fair play, all’s fair in love and marketing, and brands have long endeavoured to recycle, to re-use and abuse other brands’ communications to further their own selfish ends. Remember how Dixons had us laughing all the way to the online checkout when they lampooned John Lewis, Harrods and Selfridges with their ‘Last place you want to go’ campaign?

With imitation being the highest form of flattery, perhaps it’s a wonder M&S complained at all, though perhaps you can see their point when you see the treatment they gave the cherished M&S strapline, “It’s not just sex, it’s Ann Summers sex.”
Clearly the hijacking of another brand’s visual and verbal identity is a trump card when it comes to creating cut through in communications. The mind immediately spots the disconnect between form and content and the child inside us revels in the brazen impishness. What larks!

With the boundary between what is and is not owned having the potential to be blurred and difficult to police particularly in the case of a brand’s verbal identity, the likes of McDonalds have taken action and trade marked up to 50 phrases which they regard as being intrinsic to the McDonalds brand identity including seemingly harmless platitudes such as “Have you had your break today?” and “See what we’re made of.”

It would seem M&S felt the infringement to be all the more damaging because it was not only the visual and verbal identity which were being subverted by Ann Summers but also the values that underpin the promotion. A cosy night in for two enjoying the M&S £10 deal communicates different values than that which Ann Summers is offering. You can’t help thinking that the cheeky items on offer in the Ann Summers deal would turn many buyers of the M&S Meal Deal a whiter shade of Y-Front pale.

*NB – The Sun treatment of The Economist was not an original piece of advertising and in fact a submission to the 2009 Chip Shop Awards. http://www.chipshopawards.com/

Women love shopping. It’s a fact.

We all have our weaknesses. For some it’s shoes, for others lipstick. But one thing is for certain: nothing can quite match that feeling of putting on your new purchase and facing the day with magically renewed confidence and a spring in your step.

For many women, part of the pleasure of shopping comes in sharing it with friends – browsing, chatting, trying things on, having a coffee, making a day of it. And of course, it’s always great to have someone else there to help rationalise why you NEED that dress in your life, or how your entire wardrobe will be transformed by those exquisite yet extortionately expensive heels.

With the rise of online shopping however, many of us have slightly lost the sociability and special-occasion nature of shopping – for those with little time or patience (or who struggle to resist those impulse temptations), being able to avoid the crowds, browse online at your leisure and have a box turn up at your door the next day can seem a far simpler and more practical option.

But never fear, my fellow shopping addicts –  now we can have the best of both.

Motilo.com is a new shopping website that combines the ease of online shopping and the pleasure of the social experience. Shoppers can browse the collection online and build up outfits on virtual mannequins, then link up with friends via either instant messaging or video calls. So you can get a second opinion on your latest must-haves while also catching up with friends - wherever they are in the world.

The site’s founder and CEO, Sofia Barattieri di San Pietro, told Vogue.co.uk that Motilo aims to provide its customers with ”the most seamless shopping experience”. In a market dominated by a handful of exceptionally strong players, such as ASOS and Net-à-Porter, any new contender really needs to bring something new to the table – and while features such as the ASOS Facebook store are moving towards better cohesion of channels, Motilo’s offer of real-time communication and collaboration may just have beaten them to it.

Building on the theme of 25 in honour of our upcoming birthday, we decided we would poll our UK based consultants and create a set of lists on the “brands” of the last 25 years. However we decided that we would, in fact, create not just one list but three:

So ‘The Top 25’ list consists of brands which we felt have made a strong impact over this period and continue to occupy a leading position in their respective markets.

Many other brands had, at least at some time, the potential to make it as big as our winners, but their recent dwindling has instead placed them in the ‘Not What They Used To Be’ Category and are perhaps candidates to be re-vitalised

Finally, there are the brands which created a storm in their time but have since then either faded into the background or have completely disappeared from the UK market entirely. We list these under the name of ‘Going, Going …  & Gone.’

We have listed each of them alphabetically as our sample is far from being statistically significant

So looking at the list what can we learn?

Firstly, the abundance of high street brands in the ‘Not What They Used-To-Be’ and ‘Going, Going… & Gone’ lists once again highlights the importance of developing a digital presence in retail.

Secondly, perhaps M&S and McDonald’s position in the winning list serves as a reminder that even declining brands can be revitalised through intelligent repositioning. This should lift the spirits of the ‘Not What They Used To Be’ brands, since most of them are still household names with substantial capital that can be leveraged.

Lastly, even the most successful brands should never stop developing in line with consumer trends. Polaroid, Laura Ashley and The Body Shop were all brilliant in their respective fields and delivered against very relevant customer needs at the time. However, they have been less successful in foreseeing future developments and devising their strategy accordingly, which has resulted in them lagging behind their more long-sighted competitors. 

As ever we would love to know your thoughts on our lists of 25 and whether you have any nominations of your own?

Don’t you love those moments when you see a brilliant idea and just think, “why hasn’t anyone done that before?!”

Perfect example: the new multipack design by Australian beer brand Lovell’s Lager.

Absolutely genius spot of an opportunity to differentiate – street level packaging is currently woefully underused by beer brands, but this imaginative take is bound to become a must-have for every beach barbecue under the Australian sun. With an achingly cool nod to the retro trend and the inherent promise of blissful summer evenings spent with good music, good friends and good beer, I sense cult status ahead…