Disney recently reported that the top 5 everyday pleasures were:

1. Finding money
2. Freshly washed bedding
3. Not having to queue
4. Someone smiling at you
5. Helping someone

Obviously we couldn’t take this at face value and decided to conduct our own research in the office – we’re obviously a very happy bunch because this generated a very long list!

So read on to find out what makes Value Engineers tick (and perhaps some will bring a smile to your face too!). Some of these are more ‘free’ than others though…

• Someone offering you a cup of coffee when you are busy
• Random acts of kindness
• Sound of leather on willow on the village green
• Seeing a dog leaning out of a car window, loving the wind in its hair
• The beach
• The first signs of spring – the first snowdrop
• Wafts of other people’s BBQs
• The smell of freshly cut grass
• The perfect picnic spot
• Kicking a pile of leaves
• New born baby
• Eating cheese
• Walking around for fresh air even with a Ferrari in the garage
• The relief that comes after visiting the loo!
• The wind in your hair dinghy sailing on the Thames at Hampton on a beautiful sunny day
• The view from Waterloo bridge at sunset
• The sound of a wine cork popping / beer cap hiss
• Pottering around the garden
• The paper, cappuccino, Andrew Marr’s paper review and porridge with banana in bed on a Sunday
• Cooking anything nostalgic – pancakes, scones, Christmas cake, sponge cake
• The sensation of Life!
• The cold side of the pillow
• The Today programme on Radio 4
• The smell of rain on warm concrete
• The taste of a cold beer to quench a thirst, (‘free’ if someone else is buying. A perfect ‘Ice cold in Alex’ moment)
• The sound of waves exiting a pebble beach
• The sight of the first migrant spring arrivals
• The four seasons of the year: The colours of autumn, the joy of people in summer, the first signs of spring and the first snow of winter
• Fresh and pure air
• A nice dawn at the beach
• To enjoy a good dance
• The smile of child
• To meet and old friend and realise that nothing has changed between each other
• Your first kiss
• To fall in love
• To laugh
• To love someone and being loved
• The first smell of the day of coffee brewing
• Stepping on a perfectly crunchy leaf
• Unexpectedly bumping into an old friend
• Coming into a warm house from the cold outside
• A hug
• Your head touching the pillow after a really long day
• Taking off a pair of killer heels
• Being the first person down a freshly pisted or snowy run
• Reading a book by a log fire
• The first waft of a glass of heavy, red wine
• A freshly brewed cup of tea 

Warburtons have just announced that they are due to launch two separate sub-brands in an assault on the savoury snack category. It makes intutitive sense for Warburtons to extend the brand in this way and will no doubt build a strong base of incremental sales to its core bakery product portfolio.

The typical snacker profile tends to be much younger than the supermarket shopper profile and this is reflected in how Warburtons have crafted the snack propositions and their sub-brand expressions. Whilst the Warburtons parent brand remains as an umbrella endorsement, the two brands ‘ChippidyDooDaa’ and ‘Snackadoodle’ are both prominently used as the primary on pack branding and the tonality of the pack design combined with the flavours appear to have been created to appeal to a young adult (male) audience.

As part of the mix, they have also developed brand characters for each which are highly visible on pack and this looks to be an interesting move given that such characters are usually deployed in this way to appeal to young children (especially so within this category). Warburtons do not explicitly mention ‘kids’ as one of the core target audiences in the launch announcement although I would predict that the characters will indeed prompt interest with tweens and teens. Furthermore, their potential popularity will be strengthend with this ‘aspirational’ audience largely because of the absence of any other kids branding cues.

Despite this potential interest from tweens and teens however, the presence of the characters may work against the success of the snack products in that they may serve to limit interest amongst older adults (who may be existing brand loyalists) or else risk overall confusion as they sit alongside the core Warburtons brand…

Over the last few years kids marketing has received increasing attention from lobby groups, politicians and the media and as we build towards the general election it is clear that it will become a big hot potato as witnessed by David Cameron’s latest comments. Whilst his statement today is laced with headline-grabbing sound bites, much of what he says is actually well grounded common sense given that his central demand is that kids should not be exposed to brand marketing that causes ‘….inappropriate commercialisation and sexualisation too young.’

This philosophy is implicit in the ‘Constructive Kids Marketing’ proposition of The Value Engineers Kids practice, highlighting the need to responsibly cater to the needs of children whilst recognizing the necessity to earn and keep parental trust.

With kids marketing universally being lambasted by politicians however, there is a distinct danger that brands over-compensate and revert their marketing focus too far towards mums at the exclusion of children (who, it must be remembered, are still the primary consumers of child / family products and services). We highlight this balancing act as a brand pendulum and with our needs convergence model we can demonstrate that the needs of kids and their mums are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

It is also interesting to note that the parental blog responses to such political initiatives largely reflect a growing frustration with ’top down’ directives from government. Parents are growing tired of being preached to about how they should bring up their children and largely take a more balanced view of the situation, willing to accept that ‘Kids should be Kids’ and that they should be allowed to have a bit of fun, albeit it in moderation and as part of a balanced lifestyle.