It was announced yesterday that Airfix is set for a return under the stewardship of its new owner, Hornby. The target audiences for the new range of products are adult enthusiasts (with models priced over £100) and a new generation of children (with its pocket money starter kits priced at £6.99). Of the two, it will be relatively easy to re-engage with the adult target although it may be somewhat more of a challenge to capture the hearts and minds of today’s children.

However Hornby should be encouraged by the fact that there are clear indicators of a resurgence of interest in traditional childhood values witnessed by the success of the book ‘Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)’. Additionally, it is the more traditional toy brands and products that are faring well in the recession, no doubt reflecting the nostalgic comfort value for parents and grand parents.

Kids are spoilt for choice with regards to leisure options and interactive media/gaming is often their pursuit of choice when they have any down time. However this preference is due to saliency, access, habit and ease of availability rather than an inherent lack of appeal of more traditional past times. Given the opportunity, children love to slide down hills on trays or build rope swings in the woods, it’s just that busy parents often do not have the time to show them the pleasures of such basic activities.

The economic pressures that families have endured in the last few years has provided more time however and has forced many to explore cheaper ways to keep the children entertained, and in so doing has caused many to re-calibrate their life values and priorities. Hopefully these attitudes will be maintained as we come out of the recession and if so, Airfix may well be successful in recruiting its new generation of model makers.

Just before Christmas we commented on various marketing stories in The Grocer of (19th December 2009 edition).

Chewing gum has been one of the surprise victims in recession, with sales plummeting.

We commented: “The drop in sales could also be down to hard-up consumers switching to nostalgic sweets. In this climate heart-warming appeal is a more important sales driver than functional branding”.

Alex Waters, our Director of Capabilities, commented in the ‘Top Products 2009: Survival of the Fittest’ feature by Catherine Dawes on brands, own label, chasing deals and new habits. He said, “These top brands are performing well because they provide reassurance. The biggest weapon brands have in the fight against own label is the trust they have built up over the years.”

Alex argued that people are happy to spend the extra for that reassurance, and that the brands that lose out, are those further down the table. “The big brands are doing well, own label is doing OK. The middle is the real danger zone”. In conclusion, he summised, ”the shifts in buying behaviour are here to stay. People have re-evaluated what they want to pay for and what they don’t. I don’t think shopping habits will return to those of the boom time.”

Read further comments from Alex and the full article on The Grocer online.

It’s the tensest moment in a poker game. The chips are down and you’re all in; one way or another it’s going to be a turning point for someone at the table. The chip leader could take a nosedive and you could find yourself leading the game.

And right now in brand-land the stakes have risen… because the barriers have fallen. Ad rates have dropped steadily as the economy has stuttered and businesses have adopted a frugal-minded attitude to their marketing activity. But the big boys need to stay alert. Because the short-stack brands at the table have suddenly got enough budget to make an impression.

Traditionally brands break down the journey to a greater share of the market into several stages, based on the role they play in consumers’ decisions. It works more or less the same way people (consumers) make decisions about which guests (brands) to invite to their party:

1.  Awareness: Do they know who you are?
2.  Consideration: Do they even think of you when they’re making the list?
3.  Preference: Are you one of the first they think of and do they like the idea of your company?
4.  Loyalty: Will they want to pick you first, time and time again?
5.  Advocacy: Will they be talking you up with their friends?

Loyalty and advocacy are the holy grail, and although they’re not unattainable goals, nobody really expects to generate mass-market advocacy. But all major brands do sweat and fret over increasing their preference against their old rivals. And they can normally afford to be quite short-sighted. They don’t worry too much about the smaller brands in their market which are forced to pursue niche marketing strategies around them, picking off mere morsels of loose share from the brand leaders. Until recently the chip-leaders knew the short-stacks weren’t a threat because they couldn’t overcome the hurdles of awareness and consideration. But with ad rates down, more and more brands on the fringes are setting their shoulders back and striding confidently into consumers’ consciousness.

Just take a look at the current Jameson’s Whiskey and Pets at Home spots. Neither are unknown brands but they have put themselves on TV either for the first time here or for the first time in a long time. As the Pets at Home Chief Exec., Matt Davies, says “We want to tell people we exist … There’s never been a better time to do a TV ad – rates have come right down and people are spending more time at home and watching more TV”

The Jameson’s ad looks an awful lot like the kind of communications routes Scotch whisky and bourbon brands like Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniels have been taking for some time. And for consumers who weren’t particularly aware of it, the taste-led proposition combined with its affordability could drop Jameson’s right into the consideration set against the likes of mainstream whisky brands like Bell’s and Famous Grouse.

The temperature at the table may turn torrid. And major brands in categories with middle-weight competitors should look at their position in the game. When they do, they should recognise that stacks of money won’t separate them from their competitors anymore. They’ll have to consider their brand proposition, their positioning and be honest about how sustainably relevant and motivating their point of differentiation is. They can no longer out-spend the competition; They’ll have to out-think it.