We would like to thank everyone who took part in our competition to win a free taste of our brand or packaging expertise. We were delighted with the number of entries from such an interesting and diverse variety of niche food and drink brands.

Due to the great response we decided that, along with drawing for the £2,500 first prize, we would extend the competition and offer a selection of runner up prizes to the value of £500 each. Over the next few weeks we will be speaking to the winners below to discuss their brand and packaging requirements in detail.

First prize

Little Devil – We are looking forward to delivering some great creative to Little Devil who currently have two unusual and very successful products in their portfolio: Bloody Spice is an innovative Bloody Mary beverage and Bloodshot Vodka is the world’s first Bloody Mary infused spirit. We can confirm that these two products combined make the PERFECT bloody Mary!

Runner ups…

Bendylegs - Bendylegs Granola is a healthy, award winning breakfast cereal, snack or simple pudding. Granola is traditionally a mix of nuts, seeds and fruit with an oat base that is lightly toasted using various oils, sweeteners and flavouring.

The Chocolatier – Hand-finished artisan chocolates using real ingredients. Truffles, after-dinner mousses, bars, decorations, 3D structures and extravagant chocolate creations made to suit individual specifications. 

Nutshot – Portion control snack packs with 100% natural ingredients: Gourmet Californian Jumbo Pistachios – Malabar Pepper, Gourmet Queensland Macadamia Pieces – Wicked Wasabi and Gourmet Crunchy Jumbo Virginia Peanuts – Cajun Spices!

Mawsons - From 1933 through to the sixties, the most popular tipple was Sarsaparilla or “Sass `n` Soda” as it became known. Mawson’s Sarsaparilla cordial is made from natural ingredients and produced by the same family and to the original recipe.

Sea Island Coffee - Sea Island Coffee imports and sells gourmet coffees from some of the finest, most exclusive coffee growing regions in the world. Their partners are often small estates producing rare, exotic coffees in limited quantities.

Awfully Posh Snack Company – Manufacturers of Great Taste Award winning Anglesey Sea Salt Crackling. Pork rinds from outdoor reared pigs, which are hand fried in small batches and then sprinkled with organic Anglesey sea salt.

Picture the scene: you’re doing the weekly shop. There are 50 aisles to walk up and down, and an average of 40,000 products in the supermarket. You have just 20 minutes to get around (that’s officially a measly 0.03 second per product).

It’s easy to see how responses to packaging happen in a split-second, and it is these responses determine whether a customer chooses to pick up your product or walk on by.

Go wild in the aisles

Research shows that more than 70% of purchasing decisions are made at the point of purchase, depending entirely on how we feel at the time and shoppers spend less than three seconds scanning a shelf of products they’re interested in. It’s these reasons that compel brands to always communicate the right product messages on pack with as much impact as they can muster.

Packaging should especially be a major focus for brands that don’t spend a lot (or anything at all) on advertising, as it’s the one form of communication that people choose to bring into their homes. It’s also one of the foremost ways people define who they are: whether you buy Lindt or Green & Black’s, Tiptree or Bonne Maman, it communicates something about your identity and values. So packaging is an extremely powerful tool in brand positioning, and needs to clearly reinforce a product’s positioning.

Standing out from the crowd

Stand-out on the shelf is a primary need for food manufacturers. After all, you may have the most beautiful packaging, but if customers overlook it, it’s entirely useless.

The four key elements that can help differentiate your product packaging are:

COLOUR: One of the major factors that differentiate a product or brand, in terms of recognition and also stand-out on shelf. Brands who ‘own’ a particular colour and maintain consistency over time have stronger places in people’s minds, eg Coca Cola, Cadbury, Selfridges and Veuve Cliquot.

SHAPE: Some brands develop a unique product or packaging shape. A Coca Cola, Evian or Perrier bottle is immediately recognisable. Likewise with Toblerone, Marmite and Dorset Cereals.

IMAGES: Pictures convey an idea with impact and can create a powerful emotional response. Whether your brand is innovative, uses natural products, is witty or has heritage, you can make the point with a carefully chosen image. Gü redefined its category by making its puddings sexy.

COPY: Packaging copy has been largely overlooked in the past as it was used to communicate the contents briefly and dryly. But brands are using it more to lend themselves a personality. A great example of this is Innocent, who communicate their brand with unflagging humour.

Different strokes

It’s interesting to see how many brands are producing great packaging design to capture those consumers treating themselves to small luxuries in a difficult market. Evolve has developed a premium brand identity for its series of organic cold pressed oils, using carafe-style glass bottles with a pour spout in the lid, while Babees honey has used hand-drawn calligraphy and stripes on each jar that reference bees and create a stylish design. Gouash fruit spreads from Canada quite literally raised their brand to great art by launching its products in paint tubes, while Russian haute couture spirits brand Denis Simachëv Vodka took inspiration from the iconic bottles of local Troynov eau-de-cologne, strongly identifying its customers as stylish and sophisticated. It fits in with the thinking that customers don’t differentiate between product and packaging, attributing the same values to both.

Innovating in your pack design also grabs attention as it challenges the norm – and stands out on shelves. Pringles changed the perception that crisps should always come in a bag – and elevated the product to something more valuable (and less shattered). German Hauswein launched new packaging that reclassified wines, using Pantone-inspired labelling that is easy to identify, and Rocombe ice cream reinforces its premium positioning with a pack design that uses witty character stereotypes, shying away from the expected ‘hand-made in Devon’ proposition. Tea, too, has mostly been about heritage until the Damn Fine Tea Company in London produced limited-edition gourmet leaves in tins with stunning hand-printed labels, while Nusa Kitchen used high-resolution photos of winter knits to highlight the handmade quality of their seasonal soups; they quickly became collectors’ items and customers requested more patterns. And finally, Jomon rice manages to straddle ethnic authenticity and contemporary designer in a fabric bag.

That’s packaging for you. It can entertain your customers, make them think,
surprise them or help connect with them on a deep emotional level.

All in less than three seconds.

Our London creative agency is hungry to help niche food and drink brands communicate who they are. With this in mind we are running a competition to win a taste of our brand and packaging expertise to the value of £2,500.

Whether you are launching a new product or your existing product needs an image overhaul, this is a fantastic opportunity to taste the expertise of our London creative agency and keep your marketing spend to a minimum. Competition closes 31st January 2012.  To enter click here >

Our website is currently appearing on page 1 of Google for over 30 keyphrases. These include ‘London creative agency’, ‘London packaging design’ and ‘packaging design agency’ to name just a few. SO Creative are not experts in search engine optimisation by any stretch of the imagination, but surprisingly we achieved this without the need for a specialist search engine optimisation company (SEO).

When you consider that three independent, UK based SEO companies estimated £500 per month (PER MONTH!) on a minimum 6 month contract to achieve far less results than this (page 1 for just the 3 keyphrases above), it’s pretty unbelievable.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning the value of SEO in general. It’s effectiveness is undisputed and some SEO challenges involving highly competitive, broad keywords or keyphrases obviously take a huge investment of expertise, knowledge, time and money to hit the top spots.

What I am questioning though, is the honesty and integrity of three independent, UK based, ‘award winning’ SEO companies. One of whom seemed quite confident that to get my home page to rank on page 1 of Google for ‘London creative agency’ alone, would take nothing short of rocket science and up to 6 months. With an average of 4,400 monthly UK searches, it would apparently involve not only well optimised copy, (and a lot of it), but also internal link building, external link building, article writing, postings, a dash of this, a dusting of that and £500+Vat per month (indefinitely and with no guarantees offered). Why per month? Because apparently these processes would need to be added to or tweaked on a monthly basis otherwise the rank would start slipping again. Wow! SEO sounded really hard.

It is important to remember here that I did not ask to rank page one for a highly competitive, broad keyphrase such as ‘design agency’. No, I was advised to choose less competitive, longtail keyphrases (more words) in order to stick to this ‘low’ budget.

So, how did we do it?

Whilst I was in the process of selecting an SEO company to work with, my senior designer, in-house web developer and I were busy revamping our website. The design was complete and the build was underway. I was assured by all three SEO companies that work should start immediately and did not need to wait until the build was complete.

Despite this advice, I was not convinced I would get my money’s worth by signing on the dotted line before the site was launched, so I stalled. And while I was waiting I did a bit of internet based research to make sure I fully understood what my money was going to buy.

The interface of our content managment system (CMS) is very intuitive and user friendly and we have control over many aspects that search engines use to organise and make sense of web page data. As I was in the process of uploading content anyway and had access to these areas I thought I may as well also complete the SEO information. Obviously, it would take more than this (£500 per month more I assumed) to rank on page 1 of Google, but I was curious to see what I could achieve before the experts worked their magic.

So, I set to work and optimised not just three, but every single page of our website. A laborious process requiring basic SEO knowledge and common sense.

The waiting game

The results of optimising your site are never immediate. It takes a while for Google to ‘crawl’ your site and pick up on the changes and up to six months for the full effects to be realised. So initially (after about a week or so) I noticed that I was at least now appearing on pages ranging from 1-5 for some of my keyphrases. Page 1 for keyphrases with seemingly little competition (e.g ‘luxury brochure design’) and page 5 for more common search terms (e.g ‘London creative agency’). Pretty cool I thought and wondered what would happen if I sat back and waited.

Every so often I checked our rank for ‘London creative agency’ – my most ambitious keyphrase. Starting at page 5, it took about two months to reach page 3 and that is where it stayed until all of a sudden, after six months, a few in-bound links and a small number of articles later, there was a huge shift and we arrived at page 1.

Upon further inspection we discovered we also now ranked on page one for over 30 highly relevant keyphrases (with varying degrees of competition and popularity).

Perhaps I am missing something and I welcome any comments to prove me wrong, but if the advice I was given is to be believed, in order to maintain our positions we will need to invest significant time (£500 worth) in our SEO every month….we’ll see. For now the number of hits we receive is increasing week on week as are the number of new clients who have found their way to us through a search engine.

Sound SEO advice

As a London creative agency we have designed, built and maintained many websites over the years, but we never previously offered search engine optimisation advice or services believing it best left to the experts. Whilst this is often still the case, many of our clients require nothing particularly complex and now, along with great website design and robust build we can also give sound advice on how to rank on page 1 of Google without breaking the bank!

Old brands have been telling us their stories for years – through TV ads, poster campaigns and snappy slogans that reached out to as many people as possible. And it worked. We sat through thousands of ads on TV and at the movies that are big, glossy and totally interchangeable.

Dictating your message to the masses seems quaintly old-fashioned in today’s world of social media, flash mobbing and word-of-mouth. Now, consumers are allying themselves with brands that have a unique perspective, authentic point of view or engaging personality.

Here’s a thumbnail guide that shows how to make a start in telling your story:

Get right to the core of who you are

What does your organisation stand for? It sounds like an easy question but it’s notorious difficult to pin most brand guardians down on. So many companies produce similar products to others that many get overlooked; but what makes them truly different is their belief in fairness, their insistence on excellence, their super-quick service or their quirky way of communicating.

When you clearly and succinctly define these three or four ‘core values’, it creates clarity for a brand – and should determine everything the organisation is, does or produces – from the product and its packaging to staff uniforms and the environment you work in. Think of the environmentally-friendly Body Shop throwing away mountains of unwanted product or treating suppliers disrespectfully; it would chip away at what the brand stands for.

What’s the big idea?

Some brands have one really strong idea behind them that determines who they are and what makes them different from anyone else. Project 7 Purified Water in the US are dedicated to addressing worldwide issues from poverty to building the future, and the premise drives every aspect of their business from how they hire to where they work to their packaging, and it makes them unique. Gü believes in indulging in pure pleasure in life; Innocent believes that being healthy is fun and life-enhancing. Simple.

What’s the one big idea behind your brand? Be as specific as possible, so you can ‘own’ that area of the market. It could be using natural products, exceptional design, innovation…

What are your brand’s values?

Your values can define your big idea, or just be one element of your brand. Either way, it is incredibly useful to define what your brand believes in – whether cutting-edge design, sourcing local ingredients or fair trading. Tesco launched LocalChoice milk to help raise the price per litre that went to farmers; Nespresso believes in promoting fine coffee through expertise and education, so they have a dedicated concierge service is available to members. Innocent’s values are about openness and honesty, integrity and caring; you can see it in the ingredients they use, their charity work and their packaging – and they always encourage people to drop in and see them. And what’s not to love about little bobble hats on bottles to help the aged?

What’s your brand vision?

Some brands define themselves by where they want to be; as one car maker announced in the early 1900s, ‘Ford will democratize the automobile’. Maybe you want your brand to revolutionise its sector, and this in turn should define how you advertise, package, manufacture and treat your staff.

Gin artisans Sipsmith wanted revive London’s gin heritage, and handcraft in the old style the way old London gin houses did; even their name mirrors it through using the old English artisan word ‘smith’. By contrast, Absolut Vodka wanted to be the ultimate urban brand, so launched a range of city-based bottles from New Orleans to Vancouver, each with different ingredients that reflected the city’s character.

What’s your brand’s personality?

It’s once again up to you to determine what your brand is like to hang out with. Is it an authority, militant, quirky, fun, unpredictable, a best friend, super-efficient…? These character traits will translate into all your communication streams, from design and copy to customer service, presentations and even what you wear. Snog positions itself as individual, healthy and appealing to all, so its straplines of ‘Less talk, more snogging’ and ‘I like snogging more than ice cream’ hit the cheeky, all-inclusiveness on the head.

Jordans Cereals launched Macho Muesli using nutritionalists and men’s health statistics to work out the ideal ingredients for blokes, and speak in a no-nonsense, down-to-earth way: ‘It’s not bird food!’ The muesli comes in a big man-size tub and is chunkier than competing cereals. Finally, the ultimate brand expression comes from the Austrian Gut Oggau vineyard, which features a line-drawn member of the family on each different vintage, demonstrating how wines have different personalities. So grandfather Berthold’s vintage is full of energy and down-to-earth, but is mature with many stories to tell; the daughter Winifried’s wine is young, animated, refreshing and charming. Very personal and very engaging.

If your brand was sitting in a chair opposite you, how would you describe it?

Answer this question and your brand has a great starting point
to telling an authentic and compelling brand story.

There’s a lot of talk about branding at the moment, from St Mary Portas and that nice Jeremy Gutsche down to some expert on the internet you’ve never heard of.

But with so many experts saying so much, it’s surprising that there’s so much mystery about it. And if making a strong brand follows a formula, then why are so many falling by the wayside?

On top of all the talk, there’s a long, long list of terms that go hand-in-hand with branding: Brand Equity, Brand Strategy, Brand Identity, Brand Engagement, Brand Vision, Brand Values, Brand Building, Brand Awareness… the list goes on and on, but what does it all mean?

First of all, let’s answer the question ‘what is a brand?’…

Branding then and now

The original term ‘branding’ comes from the Wild West, when ranchers marked their cattle with a sizzling iron stamp to identify them – like thatchers and masons had been doing for centuries. The ‘brand’ was the actual mark (or logo in today’s terms). Easy.

But through the growth of advertising and the increased sophistication of consumers, a brand has become much more than just a logo. If it were, you could remove it and the brand would cease to exist. Imagine Apple products and communication without their logo: still totally recognisable. The logo is just a symbol for the brand, it is the ‘mark’ that is burned onto their products.

In his best selling book ‘The Brand Gap’, Marty Neumeier explains a brand as “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organisation”. This is a brilliant and accurate definition of what a brand is, but it only becomes brilliant once you delve deeper and discover how a brand is created.

The creation of a great brand

Now this is tricky. Many have attempted to define in a just a few words how to create a great brand, but I struggle to find one that does it well. More encompassing than Neumeier, but in true marketing speak is “A brand is a construct that delivers marketing promises to facilitate the formation of a mutually beneficial and evolving bond between the seller (or corporation) and its stakeholders based on functional and emotional values.”

This is more informative, but very technical in comparison to Marty Neumeier’s emotional approach. My own simpler definition is “A brand is a person’s opinion about a product, service or company that is formed upon being exposed to influences. The key to building a successful brand is a very clear idea of what opinion you want people to form and an intelligent marketing strategy to deploy it.”

And while you can’t control people’s opinions, you can influence them at every stage of your marketing. The brand ‘idea’ is what makes a product or service unique or better than it’s competitors – and it must be clearly communicated at every touchpoint. So, Apple is about simplicity of use and superlative design; Innocent is about honesty and purity; Ikea is based on the idea that good design is for everyone, Volvo is safety – you get the idea.

These central ideas are transmitted through all the brand’s touchpoints, including retail environments, advertising, staff behaviour, online plus the product or service itself.

The reason so many brands fail, is because they invest huge sums in marketing and advertising without really knowing why they exist, what they are trying to say and what makes them unique. Is there much difference between Starbucks and Costa Coffee? McDonald’s and Burger King? Gucci and Prada? People may dispute the intricacies of the product, but the big difference is the part of peoples’ minds that the brand ‘owns’.

To succeed, it is imperative to understand what it is that makes your offering the best choice in its category.

Defining the territory

Now we know that a brand is merely a person’s opinion about a company, product or service, the definitions become easier to understand:

Brand Strategy: The plan for how the brand intends to create customers. It is the strategy for delivering the influences.

Brand Proposition: The distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others.

Brand Awareness: A measure of consumers’ knowledge of a brand’s existence.

Brand Engagement: The process of forming an emotional and rational attachment between a consumer and a brand.

Brand Values: The amount that a brand is worth in terms of income, potential income, reputation, prestige, and market value.

Brand Equity: The difference between the prices that the consumer accepts to pay when the brand is known compared to the value of the benefit received.

Brand Identity: The visual aspects of the brand. A consistent look and feel, the style of which supports the idea.

Brand Guidelines: An instruction manual which lays down rules to ensure the idea is communicated consistently at every touchpoint.

Passionate about branding

SO Creative’s brief was to re-position Green’s in the minds of consumers and increase affinity for the brand by giving Green’s a personality, evoking the heritage of the brand (since 1907), and dialing up the quality cues.

This brief was not without its challenges. The existing packaging design (seen to the left) was quite kidcentric with no quality or heritage cues and in our minds a drastic change was required in order to answer the brief. Initially this caused much internal discussion as we pondered over exactly how we could answer the brief AND retain the required brand recognition.

Creative Director Jo Stedman comments… “we carried out extensive research to identify how far the brand could be moved on whilst ensuring existing customers were retained. The challenge was simplified upon the discovery that the existing green brand colour was enough to aid recognition and was unique to the category. This left the door wide open for a completely new look and feel”.

Inspired by traditional enamel signage the new logo communicates the heritage of the brand effectively, whilst the contemporary, mouth-watering photography against a clean white backdrop gives the brand a modern and fresh look and feel.

Emma Calder, Senior brand Manager for Kerry Foods is delighted with the results….”On the back of the success of the kids range, I then asked SO Creative to look at how we could re-brand Green’s and then roll out new packaging across the entire baking range.  The new packaging has been very well received by the trade and consumers, resulting in increased listings and sales. This project is about to launch – on time and on budget.  I recommend SO Creative with the highest conviction.”

Does your brand make sense?

For years, marketing has relied only on the way brands look – from their advertising, the way they sit on shelves and the colour of the packaging. But brands are now looking at creating emotional connections with their customers by tapping into all five senses – often with surprising results.

Open your eyes to branding opportunities

Currently, over 90% of all brand communication focus on just sight; that means leaving less than a measly 10% appealing to sound, taste, touch and smell. But emotional connections are made with a combination of all five senses.

The smell of popcorn takes you to the cinema; a champagne cork popping brings an anticipatory whoop from a room; a sniff of freshly mown grass and it’s spring… It’s these types of multi-sensory touchpoints that allow brands to create a more powerful connection with their customers, who can ‘feel’ the brand on many different levels – often in a deeply emotional way.

It’s no surprise that in-store retail is playing with sound and scent, and that packaging experts in the US are toying with resins that have feel appeal, and inks that change colour or release a fragrance when rubbed.

Who’s doing what?

The first brand to famously introduce sensory elements to their brand was Singapore Airlines, who redefined the travel experience. They devised a signature scent that the crew wore and that they sprayed on their planes and the hot handtowels; the flight attendants’ make-up was in exactly the same shade the airline’s brand colours; and even the way they spoke to and served passengers came under scrutiny. It became a seamless brand experience, and copied widely by others.

Smell it

Smell is a hugely important memory trigger, with scientists estimating that 75% of our emotions are generated by what we smell – so it’s no surprise that perfume counters are placed by the front doors of department stores to waft out over the pavement and entice people in. A Yale study found that Juicy Fruit gum and Vicks VapoRub were among the most recognized scents for adults, along with a Crayola crayon, who considered their smell was such a fundamental element of their brand that they trademarked the smell. Likewise, Play-Doh has such powerful scent associations that the company released a special Play-Doh anniversary perfume to celebrate their 50th birthday. Burger King launched its own fragrance – called Flame and smelling like ‘the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.’ Not everyone’s cup of Darjeeling, but it sold completely out within four days.

A few years ago, the Harrods Senses promotion pumped out uplifting fragrances at each entrance, scented the store guide that customers used as well as the till receipts that were slipped into bags of purchases to take home – releasing the same pleasing scent at different touchpoints of the customer journey.

Hear it

Sound is an equally important part of the mix. Car manufacturers started inserting dampeners in door cavities to give the door closing sound a more satisfactory clunk, and Harley Davidson tried to trademark the distinctive ‘potato-potato’ sound of their motorbikes, as sound equals quality. So much so that Kellogg’s have been testing the crunching of their cereals for years in a Danish sound lab, and found that a crunchier sound meant a bigger market share; Rice Crispies that don’t ‘snap, crackle and pop’ are considered stale, even though they may not be. Schweppes too used their unique gassy sound to advantage in their “Sch you know who” campaign, and British Airways has been using carefully chosen signature music that reflects its values of quality and excellence (sadly fading) in its advertising since the 1970s.

Interesting that different brands are using sound in different ways in their propositions. Turntable Kitchen in San Francisco is monthly curated food and music discovery experience that sends out recipes and hand-selected musical pairings that appeal to several different senses for a more enriching experience. And Ferran Adria, the world’s greatest chef at El Bulli restaurant in Spain, worked with a composer to introduce an entirely choreographed a 29-minute tasting menu; an orchestral explosion was mirrored in the explosion of an olive in the diner’s mouth. He also manipulates light, smell and sound in his restaurant to give customers a truly multi-sensory experience.

Touch it

Research by Instore Research in the US says that a customer that picks up a product in a store is 96% more likely to purchase it, so making customers want to touch your products is paramount. Gü have Touch a Toblerone bar, a KitKat or a box of Pringles with your eyes shut and you know exactly what it is; and the classic Coca Cola bottle was designed in 1915 so that if you smashed it, you would still know what it was – even when dressed in other clothes.

A recent memorable collaboration was between Kid Robot and Dunny, whose set of art toys to house your condiments demanded to be squeezed, while graphic designer Rachel Long’s multi-sensory food packaging features scratch and sniff elements plus a design that invites touch. Even luxury Parisian caviar purveyor Kaviari has launched a range of dinky colourful tins aimed at the travelling gourmand who wants a slurp of caviar on the go, elevating tinned fish to a fashion accessory with an unusual shape and raised logo and designs on the lid.

What else?

Proving there are always new ways to engage customer senses, Bompas & Parr created the walk-in Alcoholic Architecture cocktail bar in London’s Soho, allowing customers in protective suits to simply breathe in a mist of vaporised gin and tonic; Moët & Chandon took a different approach in their champagne bar in Macau, which replicated the experience of opening of a bottle of bubbly by using Interactive projections of bubbles on the walls, infusing the air with the smell of champagne and covering the bar in 18-carat gold foil.

Finally, the biggest multi-sensorial branding exercise to date is when Ralph Lauren changed the outside of their Bond Street store into a 4D canvas, and commissioned an 8-minute movie clip with full soundtrack to showcase their latest collection. A projected snakeskin belt tightened around the building and huge ties billowed down the front; their new fragrance was pumped into the street, and the front of the store seemed to slide away so you could see the interior. Finally, a virtual image of Ralph Lauren himself appeared at the window.

We’re all multi-sensory beings; if brands want to engage their consumers on deeper levels, it’s time to start exploring different sensory triggers.

Recession proof

It’s no surprise that the trendy hipsters of Shoreditch are raiding Oxfam shops for tweed, braces and brogues – and moustaches and beards are reappearing on those in the know. It’s part of the huge nostalgia trend which food brands are lapping up – and their customers are asking for seconds.

What’s it about?

In times of trouble – war, economic downturns, natural disasters and the like – we shrink the world down to what we know to feel secure and reassured, and look back to perceived simpler times. Many food brands today understand that to communicate their past – whether real or imaginary – gives them a strong sense of permanence and restates their values, important when people are looking for comfort.

What are we seeing?

Old brands, especially sweets and other ‘treat’ foods, are reworking and reintroducing archive packaging to communicate their heritage, often reinstating fondly-remembered products at the same time. New brands are reworking nostalgic propositions to create something new. At the same time, it’s interesting to see how many heritage foods like Battenberg cake, trifle and Victoria sponges are making their way onto the menus of the great chefs.

Who’s doing what?

Lots of chocolate bars are being resuscitated to please children of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Nestlé brought back Drifter (plus the limited edition Drifter McFlurry collaboration), the 1970s Texan Bar, as well as back TV advertising of the nerdy Milky Bar Kid showing 50 years of tense-looking speccy blond boys staring vacantly at the camera. Burton Food’s re-launched caramel Wagon Wheel with 1970s-style gold packaging, and Walkers revived Monster Munch in its original 1977 design and flavours, rehiring the stars of old TV advertisements to lend authenticity. There’s Brannigan’s crisps harking back to the brand’s original brown paper bag design but in very 21^st century low fat versions – while Doritos taco-favour chips are using their original 1960s packaging, and Birds Eye made us a gift of the much-missed Arctic Roll in a 1970s-feel cardboard box.

At last, brands are listening to their customers to find out what they really, really want. So a Facebook campaign brought back Cadbury’s Wispa, which overnight became the UK’s most bought bar, and Findus asked their customers if they wanted to see Chicken Curry Crispy Pancakes – every student’s favourite – and received an overwhelming yes. Interesting that Hovis relaunched its original-size 400g loaf for singletons.

Great to see Ben Shaws soft drinks relaunched with retro designs and real heritage flavours of cloudy lemonade, dandelion and burdock and bitter shandy. Cadbury’s meanwhile are reworking packaging for Curly Wurly, Fudge, Chomp and Freddo bars, inspired by original old designs. Interesting that recent US Celebrity Apprentice finalists were tasked with designing retro packaging for 7UP on the show. Spot on.

Brand propositions

Products themselves are following the trend, with M&S introducing nostalgic sandwiches with old-fashioned fillings (jam, ham and corned beef) for those who can’t make their own. It’s gratifying to hear people talking about different UK apple varieties (there are 1,200 – just imagine!) and knobbly-shaped peppers, carrots and parsnips about to return to our shelves. Interesting too that the Dewhurst chain of butchers, once Britain’s biggest, is currently being revived, as part of a new venture to reinvigorate old British brands. And even rebrewed Maxwell House instant coffee – once the preserve of sophisticated 1970s kaftan-wearers – which Kraft has updated in Mocha, Irish Crème and Orange Cappuccino flavours.

New heritage brands

Newly minted brands are cashing in on the craze for the past, with no heritage of their own, apart from what they communicate. Alchemist Dreams in the UK makes the world’s first custom liqueurs, each blended by hand to order in small batches, decanted into an old-fashioned bottle with a red ribbon, sealed with a blob of wax and a personalized, hand printed label. Likewise, Doss Blockos beer in New York, whose packaging is inspired by the squatters of the 1990s, with each bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag reflecting the lager’s stripped-back approach to brewing, and London’s Sipsmith premium vodka and gin brand whose old-fashioned line drawings nod to traditional craftsmanship, and gives the brand instant heritage.

It’s great to see new ideas around you – but it’s also comforting to be reminded where you’ve come from.

What will also grow however, is the number of companies who offer luxury travel experiences. Some who had previously focused on general travel consumers have taken necessary steps to protect themselves through the recent financial crisis; they have re-evaluated their business plans and are now specifically targeting this resilient market. As a result, competition is set to get fiercer than ever over the next few years.

If travel operators are to succeed they will need to firmly establish themselves as authentic brands that consumers can trust.

A very different kind of market

As this luxury sector recovers, a very different kind of consumer will emerge. Companies will not be able to rely on a large pool of customers ready and willing to buy with little thought to cost. Today’s luxury consumers have higher expectations, they expect impeccable quality and service, they understand value better and research their purchases much more thoroughly. There is also evidence to suggest that luxury travellers are getting younger, explained in part by a rise in affluent young people and young executives worldwide.

Luxury travel operators will need to work hard to engage with this more discerning market. Post recession success will be dependent not only upon superb quality of service, but also a strong, cohesive brand and a strong online presence and reputation.

Luxury consumers will be looking for brands they can trust which offer personalisation and exclusivity. They will expect exceptionally designed marketing communications, inviting websites and they will be using social media to research and qualify prior to purchasing.

First steps to building a luxury brand

As competition increases companies are urged more than ever to create powerful, memorable and consistent brands. This is especially relevant for luxury brands who can increase their revenue base and brand equity, plus strengthen the base of loyal customers.

There are sizeable differences between luxury brands and other brands. A luxury brand commands a high price which is justified by exceptional quality, selectivity and personalisation. Luxury brand communication is exclusive and addresses the aspirations of a particular group of consumers.

SO Creative Director Jo Stedman comments “In order to build a persuasive luxury brand, travel operators need to assess their companies in order to identify their strongest assets, find a competitive advantage and build a unique brand story around it. This brand story is your reason for being, it is what sets you apart from the competition and it will directly inform and influence the messaging and design of all marketing communications. Design can then be used to great effect to communicate and enhance your story, encouraging consumer trust and representing your company and brand consistently.”

In order to identify a brand story companies that can draw upon their history and tradition should do so. When it comes to getting luxury consumers to spend a lot of money, timeless design sells and brands that can demonstrate timeless, everlasting style and an authentic heritage have an immediate advantage. For those that do not have a strong history, the focus could be quality, originality, attention to detail or even sustainability.

Whatever the message, it should be communicated with authority, simplicity and consistency at every touchpoint.

Connect with your consumers

To connect with your target consumers’ pursuit of a bespoke and luxurious travel experience you need to understand the key factors that contribute to their expectations.

The word ‘luxury’ instantly raises people’s expectations. Today’s luxury travel consumers expect the highest level of selectivity and personalisation. All elements of your service chain must work seamlessly, from transport and accommodation to ground services and tours. Before they experience any of this though, they first undertake the research and sourcing. This is your first (and best) opportunity to differentiate yourself.

Luxury travellers are increasingly researching and buying online and first impressions really do count. When a potential customer arrives at your website, do not underestimate the power of the design to attract or repel within seconds. You have just a few seconds to engage on exactly the right level. Your website must immediately communicate the right message to your target consumer and give an assurance that you can deliver on their expectations.

Design is especially important in the case of luxury brands as luxury consumers have frequent interaction with the finely tuned marketing strategies employed by other luxury brands they have exposure to.

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc) also play a huge part in today’s consumers purchasing decisions and you should use the internet shrewdly to build a good, knowledgable online reputation.

Once you have made a sale it is vitally important that the brand experience does not stop there. Your brand should remain in force at every level. Even internal communications have a part to play in building and protecting your brand, especially today when it is harder than ever to attract and retain staff. A great brand inspires loyalty amongst staff as well as customers.

Summing up and next steps

Whether established, repositioned or a newcomer to the industry, the first step to successful luxury travel branding is a concise understanding of who your consumers are. Only then can you create a compelling brand story to inform and direct all aspects of your marketing activity.

Done well, your brand will work hard for you. Resulting in successful engagement of your target consumer, an ability to charge a premium, a great reputation and most importantly… increased sales.

Sources:
‘What’s Next: Rebirth of Luxury’ – Mckinsey & Company
‘The Future of Luxury Travel’ – International Luxury Travel Market