As any follower of our Blog will have seen The Value Engineers has recently added another string to its bow with the launch of its very first dedicated Kids practice. This obviously represents exciting times for all at The Value Engineers as we begin to reminisce over our favourite kids brands (mine being Merlin Premier League Football Stickers).

No wonder then it was with the Kids practice that sprung to mind as soon as I saw these whilst on holiday in Austria last week:

Spar is the brand bringing these to market, which I can only imagine are positioned as such to get children to eat eggs from a young age. What made the discovery more polarizing was the fact that a friend in my ski party is an adamant egg-hater, he can’t even bare to touch them! When asked why he doesn’t like them his only explanation is as follows…”never had them when I was younger”. This little discovery took me full circle.

If it is upon this consumer insight that the brand made a decision to to engage young targets with egg eating then I salute them. And to be honest even if they didn’t and just decided to paint the eggs and stick a cartoon bunny on the pack to tempt the little ones then I salute them as well because really they’re just a lovely, fun product.

‘After a Health Select Committee’s report last week, alcohol brands face a possible ban on television advertising. But an all-out ban need not spell disaster for this already promotionally fettered industry: it could lead to new highs of creative strategic thinking.’

Anna Eggleton, Director of Closeness, comments in last week’s Marketing Week’s lead article, ‘Putting a new face on your brand’ by Jo Roberts:

‘Stretching an alcohol brand into different territories is something that Anna Eggleton, director at The Value Engineers, believes could work well in the UK for brands with strong personalities. Some companies are practising displacement marketing in various forms already, she argues.

“If you have a good brand like Camel or Marlboro, it should have a life of its own,” says Eggleton. She says the practice of displacement marketing is about “thinking about branding in a different way.” Many alcohol brands are already thinking beyond large-scale television campaigns to get messages across to their target audience.

She argues that Guinness is already practising displacement because it is already well-known outside of its sector. Merchandise such as T-shirts, key rings and hats are available, and the brand has also strayed into food with limited edition Marmite flavoured with Guinness.

The Value Engineers’ Eggleton claims that the smart brands “need to start thinking about putting strategies in place now” in order to stay ahead of any future restrictions.’

Read the full article on Marketing Week online.

We were really pleased that on Tuesday the 27th of January our Chairman Paul Walton was asked by our friends at Langholm Capital to deliver a trends speech, ‘Dreams, Themes and Schemes’, to an audience of fifty CEOs, entrpreneurs and senior executives from a range of highly successful consumer brands.

The event gave Paul the opportunity to exhibit our knowledge of trends, how brands can best implement them and the effects they have on the consumer marketplace. Below is a brief summary of the thinking Paul covered in his address:

Trends can be to marketers what the venus fly trap is to the fly, the instinctive response they provoke in those looking everywhere for change can be both empowering & dangerous. We use examples of mistaken forecasts such as that of John Naisbitt who in 1996 failed to see the threat from the internet & 24 hour news television in a review on national newspapers; to implore brands to ignore trends at their peril – but without putting all your brands eggs in one trend-shaped basket either.

As Martin Raymond suggests in ‘The Tomorrow People’, the tactile brand that understands the implication of a trend on its industry and sizes its investment in response accordingly will put this foresight to good use. What we have also noticed in the past is that the dominant players can often be the least forsightful. The overarching message we try to emphasise is that whilst trends can provide opportunities for brands, mistaken forecasts can be dangerous.

Just because a trend is new & exciting doesn’t mean it necessarily requires your attention – take a look at our list of faux-trends and realise that just because it’s got a catchy name doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Lengthening life spans, gender, globalization, technology & wellness are some of the Macro trends we often talk about as their glacial shifts can cause the seismic reactions that may directly affect your brand(s). If healthy eating is the slow moving tectonic plate then “5-a-day” is the vibration that brands have had to harness.

Here is a small selection of Paul’s top tips for harnessing trends effectively:

• Avoid technical wonder & instead persist with measurable changes in attitudes and behaviour
• Always look at the cost benefit analysis
• Look outside your own industry
• Don’t forget to blend your trends: Ageing population + The Mediterranean diet = Olivio!

For more information on the Trends practice at the Value Engineers please contact Amelia Boothman.