Yet again, Coles and Woolworths are set to battle it out in a price war. This time its fruit and vegetables with Coles trying to steal the “fresh food” crown with its new campaign; ”There’s no freshness like Coles freshness”. Woolworths, badged “The Fresh Food People”, is expected to counterpunch in the coming days to protect its brand.
Australia day is here for another year, along with painted faces, flag flying, boxing kangaroos and, of course, companies trying to leverage patriotic feelings for their brand’s benefit. Coles and Woolies are fighting it out to prove who is ‘more Australian’, Vegemite has renamed their famous spread to ‘Australia’ and Lamb has again released their annual Lambassor, Sam Kekovic, for another ripper viral session – this time trying to get him the number 1 on the pop charts.
But this year, it is Wine Australia that has caught my attention with their idea to ‘de-stride’ those drinking foreign vino.
The famous and annoying catch cry, “down, down” and the big red finger might actually carry far greater symbolism for Coles and their reputation than they realise. As the brand becomes more elastic and focuses on ‘stretch, stretch how far can we stretch’, could this strategy actually bring the brand down or is Coles setting a new benchmark for Australian brands?
Companies are always seeking new ways to grow and expand but when brands start to develop a bigger range of products, there is a danger of stretching the brand too far. Extensions can have a knock on effect that confuses the brand’s identity, its customers and can potentially leave the brand open to attack from more focussed competitors.
In recent months, the larger supermarket chains have found themselves embroiled in controversy as a result of their price wars and less than market friendly tactics. As Peter Singline mentioned in his recent blog, the plight of smaller brand owners, in particular the smaller milk producers, has been brought to the country’s attention causing widespread consumer outrage.
Coles Supermarkets in Australia has for years sat back and watched its formidable competitor Woolworths claim the market positioning of being ‘The Fresh Food’ people. It is a positioning line that is strongly recognised and recalled amongst consumers. In recent years they have successful reinforced it with their revamped logo and weekly fresh produce updates on National TV. At the same time Coles has really not owned any consistent positioning. It has simply been seen as playing second fiddle to Woolworths.
The Most Comprehensive Trend Report on the Visual Language of Brand Identity
Trends in the visual language of brand identity are driven by many factors from the ‘me-too-ism’ of designers and their clients mimicking the visual language of market leaders, to new and emerging trends such as ‘sustainability’ that draw a similar and en-mass visual response from designers all over the world. Over the past 12 months we have collected more than five thousand different brand expressions spanning almost every major industry and category of the western world.
Our 2010 Trend Report has been picked-up and re-published in blogs and marketing publications around the world – so by request we’re providing the report as one, complete pdf download (even if it is a whopping 6.8mb in size).
The Final Chapter in our Comprehensive Trend Report
Over the last month we’ve published the first five chapters of our research report into trends in visual language. This Monday and we publish the final chapter of the report. In this week’s chapter we’re exploring trends in brand visual language relating to colour, as well as posing the 10 most critical questions you should be asking yourself about your brand’s visual language.
The Second Chapter in our Comprehensive Trend Report
on the Visual Language of Brand Identity
Last Monday we published the first section of our report into trends in visual language. Each Monday for the next five weeks we’ll publish another chapter. This week’s chapter focuses on trends in brand visual language related to ‘Authenticity’.
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:
What an intriguing battle there is playing out between Australian supermarket chain, Woolworths and Apple. The question at the center of the struggle is; when is a stylised green W (Woolsworths new logo) really an apple? At first glance we may feel that Apple is being a little too precious about their logo. I must declare for as long as the new Woolworths logo has been in the market I have not looked at it as anyway associated with Apple. But then again I am not the custodian of the Apple brand.
