Have you ever played the old parlour game of ‘Whispers’ where one person whispers a phrase to you and you pass it on, by whisper, to the next person. After 6 or 7 rounds ‘I have a square’ becomes ’a star’. It’s a demonstration of how the intent behind a message can be lost in transition if there is not someone standing between the individual whisperers correcting them.
The Australian Food News newsletter recently reported on research in the UK (by food and grocery experts IGD) that had shown British consumers have little confidence that their shopping choices can make a sustained difference on some of the major social, economic and environmental issues of our day. Of course the UK consumer may be different to the Australian, but I wonder by how much?
Coming from an agency that devotes itself to developing brand strategy driven by insight I couldn’t help wondering what these results say about the brands that are on the supermarket shelves and that are at the heart of how these consumers responded.
This week there has been a lot of press coverage of Brand Finance’s ranking of Australia’s strongest brands. The study focused on brand portfolios owned by ASX listed companies and excluded secondary listings. The value of individual brands was not split out, so the results reflect the total basket of brands that an individual company may own. That means for some one like Woolworths, it is the combined ranking of the likes of its supermarket brand, along with Dick Smith, Dan Murphy’s and
the like.
Brand Finance reaches a total value of the corporate and consumer brands on its list by adding up a company’s market capitalisation, debt and intangible assets – which can be anything from the strength of its brands to loyalty schemes, supplier relationships and intellectual property.
The top 10 Australian brands, were ranked as follows:
Beers aint beers
Everything about the Coopers brand oozes authenticity. Coopers in South Australia is a family owned brewery with a long history of making fine ale (as opposed to making beer). Coopers is a brand with high beer cred for taste and quality. But the finest thing about the Coopers family is they understand how rich and valuable that history is as a brand asset, and communicate it with passion and humour at every opportunity.
The Coopers brand visual language
Over the years the visual language of the Coopers brand has continued to evolve, but with few exceptions it has remained on the same path of Read the rest of this entry »
