Tag Archives: rebrand

McCain gets major brand makeover

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Ahh, McCain, you’ve done it… for the first time in 50 years.

Frozen food brand McCain has had a major makeover, including a new logo, courtesy of strategic design agency BrandOpus, which set up shop in Australia last year. The new look packaging is the biggest change the company’s look has had in over 50 years and has taken over six months to develop.

Paul Taylor, executive creative director at BrandOpus says of the design, “We were challenged by McCain to imbue their brand identity with new meaning. Establishing the sunshine as the new symbol for the brand reflects the warmth and positivity of a natural world that will ensure the consumer reappraises the role of the brand.”

McCain redesign 1_web_rgb

The new look is hoped to reinvigorate the FMCG brand, McCain’s marketing director for Australia and New Zealand, Mike O’Brien says, “BrandOpus’ portfolio redesign reframes the way people see our brand – to drive reappraisal, improve visibility, and act as an anchor for our renewed focus on leading category growth.”

The new identity evokes a natural landscape and anchors the logo in sunshine, which brings warmth to the McCain brand. The design also sees the removal of the ‘black box’ logo, fundamentally reframing the brand.

Brand Opus says: “The new visual identity, as well as a redefined brand architecture, typographic style, and colour logic helps to segment, signpost and simplify the McCain product range. The result improves shelf standout in crowded frozen fixtures.”

The new brand identity is part of McCain’s strategy to drive brand and category growth within the Australian market. BrandOpus worked closely with the local market to balance recognition of the key products and ensure ease of consumer navigation around the rationalised portfolio, through the new masterbrand identity.

The new look packaging is in stores now.

McCain redesign 3_web_rgbMcCain redesign 2_web_rgb

MediaMind becomes DG in multiscreen rebrand

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Ad management platform DG will enter the Australia market and assume a new brand identity created to unify its TV and online solutions under a single corporate umbrella.

In the process, the company’s online ad arm MediaMind will be integrated under the parent name, although the brand will continue to exist as a product line alongside the newly introduced TV-online integration tool ‘VideoFusion’.

It’s that vision of a television and online video advertising ‘nirvana’ which forms the core of the launch into Australia, regional director, Pacific, at MediaMind, Carolyn Bollaci says.

“Convergence will change the face of advertising as we know it – the world will become more video centric,” Bollaci says.

The bringing together of DG’s subsidiary companies and new brand will position it to focus on multiscreen campaign management, CEO and president of DG, Neil Nguyen, adds. “Unifying all our brands and technologies under the DG umbrella will make it easier for all advertisers to take full advantage of our unique offering,” Nguyen says.

Developed by Chermayeff & Geismar, DG’s new brand and ‘Spot on’ tagline place the ad spot as the core creative element of advertising. “We have built our new identity on our history of delivering more spots than anyone, anywhere,” Nguyen elaborates.

DG counts 14,000 advertisers as clients globally and operates 7400 agencies across a network of over 50,000 media destinations in 78 countries. It claims to represent 10% of the world’s media assets.

The new VideoFusion offering incorporates all of DG’s TV and video products and services, which include asset management, creative production, planning, analysis and ubiquitous effective delivery of converged video campaigns.

MediaMind was acquired by DG in June 2010.

 

Academy Awards looks to reverse sliding ratings run with change of name

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Eighty-five years down the illustrious moviemaking path, Hollywood’s ‘night of nights’ will now be known quite simply, and officially, as ‘The Oscars’ in an attempt to refresh the brand, according to its producers.

With the decision led by ratings figures for the event that have been on a long-term downward trend since a high of 55 million in 1998 (the year Titanic dominated), new concepts have been attempting, yet failing to reverse the trend.

With official publicity beginning to use the informal term just a handful of weeks ago, the Oscars show co-producer Neil Meron explained the following to reporters:

“We’re not calling it ‘the 85th annual Academy Awards’, which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way. It’s called ‘the Oscars’”, he says. “It’ll be like the Grammys. The Grammys don’t get a number, and neither will the Oscars.”

While the condensed, colloquial title is seen as progressive by many, to others, ramifications from the rebrand may affect the historical structure of the event.

By modestly calling the show ‘The Oscars’, this could quite possibly lead to the end of special celebrations to mark notable anniversaries such as montages of past winners and pre-recorded interviews, but it is seen as only a minor issue to the integrity of the showcase.

And in light of all the media exposure, Academy spokeswoman Teni Melidonian believes that the rebrand might not be permanent anyway. “It is right for this show, but we could easily go back to using ‘Academy Awards’ next year,” she says.

The Oscars are currently underway at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California with first-time host Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad, Ted) leading the way.

 

From Virgin Blue to Virgin Australia – the rebrand

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Campaign: Virgin Australia brand revitalisation

Client: Virgin Australia

Agency: Hulsbosch

Background

In 2000, Virgin Blue was launched with two aircraft operating on a single route. A decade on, with 91 aircraft in its fleet, Virgin Blue was losing money and market share and the future was unsustainable. This called for a major revitalisation.

As part of the ‘Game Change program’ new business strategy announced in 2010, Hulsbosch was briefed to ‘re-define the Virgin Airlines brand in Australia’ in direct challenge to Qantas, to elevate an under-dog to a genuine competitor.

In early 2010, with the clear objective to compete head to head in the business travel market, the decision to rebrand Virgin Blue presented Hulsbosch with one of the most exciting creative briefs in the history of the Australian airline industry.

Richard Branson Virgin Australia aircraft

Objectives

If Virgin Australia wanted to compete in this market as a contemporary business and leisure carrier, they needed to shift away from their low-cost carrier image and undergo a complete brand repositioning.

The new CEO John Borghetti briefed Hulsbosch directly to do the job, clearly stating that he wanted to ‘re-define the Virgin Airlines brand in Australia’.

Up to this time the airline had been operating under both national and international brands: Virgin Blue, V Australia, Polynesian Blue and Pacific Blue. Hulsbosch developed the brand name, Virgin Australia, aiming to unify all operations. It was then able to apply its own strategic brand research to implement the comprehensive and holistic brand program.

The goal driving the revitalisation was to increase the airline’s business customer market share by attracting a significant portion of its competitor’s affluent business customers.

The agency was given 12 months to get the job done, and the revitalised brand was launched in May 2011.

Strategy

Hulsbosch consolidated the airline’s disparate domestic and international brands into one unified brand, Virgin Australia, allowing it to speak with a single voice using a contemporary visual language.

Employing a five-senses approach to its brand revitalisation strategy in order to enhance the airline’s appeal to consumers, Hulsbosch looked at sight, aural, touch, taste and smell, and how each could be expressed through the brand. To complement this approach, a 360-degree brand map was devised detailing how each brand execution relates with each other, to tell the full brand story.

Virgin Australia interior and cabin crew

Execution

All brand iterations were redesigned, from a new name and brand identity, aircraft livery (exteriors) and interiors including seat design plus leather and fabrics, carpets and curtains and onboard collateral. Hulsbosch also designed the concepts for the lounges and then partnered with Sydney’s Tonkin Zykakja Greer Architects to ensure that the lounge designs were consistent with the rest of the brand.

All lounges feature a contemporary design, digital artwork by artist Daniel von Sturmer, illuminated Marblo bars, intricate timber paneling, vertical glass screens and natural light together reflecting a clever interpretation of the brand language.

The Hulsbosch team also worked with fashion designer Juli Grbac to provide input into uniforms, scarves, ties and badges.

The brand revitalisation project work extended to airport signage, Velocity Frequent Flyer identity and stationery.

Hulsbosch toned down the bright red and some of the larrikin elements of the former identity to create a smarter, cleaner and more contemporary look to appeal to business travelers without alienating leisure guests.

Virgin stands for pure and white, so Hulsbosch took ownership of white, adding the identity’s red, plus silver for sophistication and purple to give the brand an edgy look.

The importance of the delivery of the brand was also considered for crew announcements, choice of music and onboard lighting during boarding and take off. Sophisticated in-flight menus were developed and designed by Hulsbosch and chef Luke Mangan. Materials and surfaces, from glassware to seating have all been selected to be consistent with the brand’s new look and feel.

Virgin Australia aircraft exterior on tarmac

Results

Highlighting how quickly the brand revitalisation took effect on the profitability of Virgin Australia, the following information summarises the six-month financial results to 31 December 2011:

  • Growth in corporate and government revenues was 81 percent (growth in this sector was a key business objective when Hulsbosch was briefed),
  • Virgin Australia reported a statutory net profit after tax of $51.8 million, an improvement of 118 percent on the prior corresponding period,
  • yield growth of 11.5 percent on the prior comparative period along with consistent performance over the entire half, attributable to benefits associated with the airline’s strategic repositioning,
  • following the relaunch of the Velocity Frequent Flyer program last August, there are now over 3 million members, up from 2.5 million at the end of June 2011. This is an average of 1700 new members signing up daily.

Correspondingly, the full year ending 30 June 2012 results were:

  • Corporate and government segment reached 20 percent of domestic revenue, an objective of the company reached a year ahead of schedule,
  • statutory profit after tax of $22.8 million, and improvement of $90.6 million on the previous financial year,
  • yield growth of 12.2 percent, and
  • Velocity Frequent Flyer membership grew from 2.5 million to 3.2 million.

Virgin Australia was recognised at the prestigious Skytrax World Airline Awards, being voted best airline and best airline staff service in Asia Pacific for 2012, and climbing up the global rankings from 32nd in 2011 to 12th in 2012.

 

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Living the brand – working with HR to get your people onboard a rebrand

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Launching a new visual identity is one thing. Launching it successfully is another. What are the critical elements you need to get right?

One of my colleagues at TANK, Neil Shewan, has spent many hours working with organisations to uncover the triggers that help a new identity hit the mark both internally and externally. I asked him to share his insights:

So, you have a shiny new visual identity, and you are ready to launch. The CEO is on board. Check. The style guide is in place. Check. The PR is ready to roll. Check. The hard work is done. Wrong.

A brand platform needs to focus on four perspectives:

  1. The visual signals we send through our visual language, our signage, our website and our marcomms,
  2. the communications signals we send in our tone of voice, the way to communicate and the channels we use,
  3. the physical signals we send through our built environs, products and brand artifacts, and
  4. the behaviours we signal through our people and our attitude.

This last perspective is especially critical for a service brand. Aligning the behaviour of your people with the attributes of your brand is one of the most difficult parts of a brand project.

As brand and marketing professionals we all understand communications. However, when it comes to change management of people, we often need help. And the reason we need help is that much of the work falls to your human resources team. Getting the HR team involved early in a brand project can assist with the smooth integration of the brand.

In working with your HR team, add the following to your checklist:

Brand reinforcement. After the initial launch of the brand it is important to ensure the attributes of the brand are translated into proof points and actions for your employees. This needs to be reinforced regularly. Consider focusing on a different attribute of your brand every quarter. Brand reinforcement can include coaching, mentoring and training.

Recruitment and on-boarding. The behaviours you need to exhibit through your people need to be built into the recruitment process. What skills, attitudes and experiences are you looking for? Once a new person starts, it is important that the on-boarding process is heavily influenced by the brand.

Performance, reward and recognition. When people are ‘on brand’ they should be rewarded and recognised.

Engagement. Provide opportunities for your team to live the brand, and see what others are doing. This involves events, communications and surveys that seek to engage the team and keep the brand fresh.

External assessment. Know what your customers and clients think of your brand, then feed it back to your team. Ensure there are ways to assess individual performance as well as overall perceptions at a corporate level.

Corporate social responsibility. The behaviour of your organisation towards work balance, sustainability, social justice, supporting charities and work conditions (just to name a few) greatly influences the perception of your brand.

With all these elements in place, a new identity that is strongly aligned with the values and core idea of your organisation is likely to be embraced by those most important to its success: your own people, the best brand ambassadors you can find.

 

Neil Shewan is managing director of TANK and an active member of various industry bodies including the Australian Marketing Institute, Australian Institute of Management, and the RMIT Design Education Advisory Committee.

Lost in translation: Few multinationals rename well for Chinese market

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Less than one in four multinationals have rebranded well for their entry into the Chinese market, a study has found.

When entering China, a brand’s name should be changed so that the sound and the meaning of the name relate to the original, the research conducted by a group of academics argues. Only 22% of businesses entering the market adopted this full renaming approach to optimise the appeal of their brand.

Companies moving across borders often take not only ineffective names into the new market, but sometimes stick with inappropriate or damaging ones. Distributors in Chile asked Mazda to rename its Laputa minivan because ‘puta’ means ‘prostitute’ in Spanish, according to Harvard Business Review. Clairol also fell foul of language when launching its Mist Stick curling iron in Germany only to learn that in German ‘mist’ is slang for ‘manure’.

A collaborative effort by Marc Fetscherin and Ilan Alon from Rollins College, Romie Littrell from the Auckland University of Technology and Allan Chan from Hong Kong Baptist University, the study assessed the strategies of 100 large foreign firms that had entered the Chinese markets.

“Ideally the Chinese name would have both phonetic and semantic associations,” they said. “Though the hardest to pull off, this two way match gives a global product in China the best chance of success”.

Nike was one brand among the 22% to adopt the approach, renaming to ‘Nai Ke’, characters that mean ‘Endurance Conquer’. Coca-Cola is also represented as ‘Ke Kou Ke Le’, or ‘Can be tasty, Can be happy’.

One in four (24%), adopted a ‘meaning adaption’ approach, using a name that had a good semantic fit but did not sound anything like the original. General Motors and General Electric have both employed this approach, giving them an image and identity that doesn’t vary with the dialect.

Most (43%) implemented a ‘sound adoption’ approach by taking a name phonetically similar but semantically unrelated to the original. Sony refers to itself as ‘Suo Ni’, which in Chinese equates to ‘exploring nun or priest’, while Audi is known as ‘Ao Di’, or ‘profound enlighten’.

“This can work for brands that rely on advertising or word of mouth, and it highlights global identity,” the study argued. “But names lacking any real meaning are hard to process”.

A further 11% of companies made no change, instead electing to adopt a name with no resemblance or the original sound or meaning. For instance, Pizza Hut is written in characters that make the sound ‘Bi Sheng He’ and mean ‘guarantee win guests’, while Heineken is known as ‘Xi Li’, or ‘happy power’.

Lost in translation: Few multinationals rename well for Chinese market

Ride the Hobbit plane to Middle Earth with Air NZ

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Air New Zealand will label itself the ‘official airline of Middle Earth’ and roll out Hobbit-branded aircraft as it throws millions of dollars into marketing around upcoming films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Marketing UK reports that the airline has signed a two-film deal with New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer for the big screen adaptation of the fantasy novel, taking a leaf out of Brand Australia’s book after its global push behind Baz Lurhmann’s film Australia.

Initial activation of the deal will see two Boeing 777 airliners fitted out with Hobbit-inspired trimmings to act as ‘flying billboards’ on routes between the UK and North America. The activity will be supported by experiences and competitions, executed via social media, and a new passenger safety video.

It’s not the first time Air New Zealand has used the Middle Earth positioning, having been involved in a similar partnership for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which lured droves of tourists to the film’s picturesque setting.

Mike Tod, general manager, marketing at Air New Zealand, says New Zealand is established as the home of Middle Earth and Air New Zealand will bring the magic to life for travellers.

“This partnership follows on naturally from the success of Air New Zealand’s relationship with The Lord of the Rings trilogy in raising New Zealand’s profile as an international travel destination,” Tod says.

Like the final book in the Harry Potter series, The Hobbit’s single book instalment is being split into two – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Directed by Peter Jackson, the series will debut in December this year.

 

A ‘Cloak & Dagger’ rebrand for creative recruiter

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We see a lot of tongues in cheeks from brands these days, but few are as cheeky as the rebrand of recruitment agency Chantal Manning-Knight, executed to afford secrecy and discretion during those calls you don’t want your boss to know about.

Created by Interbrand, the new identity sees the creative recruitment specialist’s name change to Cloak & Dagger, and uses double entendre to disguise the agency as a store selling cloaks and knives while it goes about its recruitment services.

The website, cloakanddagger.net.au, first presents itself as an online boutique, specialising in “personalised fittings, tailoring and alterations for businesses and individuals”.

Manning-Knight herself has been given the new title, ‘head of fittings, alterations and repairs’ and the site allows users to ‘register for catalogue and product updates, and even book in for a fitting’.

According to managing director of Interbrand Sydney, Richard Curtis, the creative rebrand fit with Manning-Knight’s needs for a bespoke solution.

Marketing would love to hear the thoughts of our readers on brands that have taken a similar approach, ‘ and whether it was met with success. Please leave a comment below.

Telstra rebrand promises better service

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This week started off with the big announcement that Australia’s big brother of telcos has been quietly undergoing a makeover for the last two years and is finally stepping out with its new look.

Telstra announced yesterday that it has rebranded with a new identity that “captures the diversity of its products, services and customers,” according to Inese Kingsmill, the company’s corporate marketing director. Kingsmill says the rebranding comes at a time when Telstra feels it has soldiered through an unfavourable patch of customer satisfaction, amended that, and is now ready to step out with its rebranded image.

“Timing was essential for our rebrand. It would defeat the purpose of telling the market we’re refreshed and better than ever when our customers were not feeling confident about our performance. So it was a matter of solving what had to be resolved, ensuring that we were on the right track, and then announce this rebrand,” Kingsmill explains.

The rebrand will include a change in colours for Telstra’s logo and collateral, moving from their traditional blue and orange to incorporate a spectrum of orange, green, turquoise, blue, purple and magenta to be used across all arms of the business and in various other places, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to product packaging.

Both Interbrand and DDB Sydney worked on the new campaign, and DDB Group CEO, Marty O’Halloran, says that the implantation of new colours demonstrates Telstra’s engagement with their stakeholders: “Aspects of people’s lives are not any one colour, but made up of many, and giving Telstra a new range of colours shows that the brand is relevant and reliable from all aspects of life.”

Looks aside though, Kingsmill advises that the rebranding has included new training for all of Telstra’s staff, not just customer service representatives, to ensure that the new, ‘more engaging and human’ Telstra brand message is communicated throughout the company: “Our promise to quality service to our customers has now been enhanced to 24-hour sales and support, online Twitter support, weekend appointments with technicians, free calls to the Telstra help lines and simple pricing summaries and bills.

“Additionally, we are also introducing a new online community called CrowdSupport, where customers are able to help out other customers.”

When asked whether Telstra thought the new, more vibrant image might risk them losing the mature, reliable reputation, Kingsmill stated that the brand’s existing positive reputation will not harmed: “People associate Telstra with being the most reliable telco in the market, and we always will be. This rebrand will show that we are not only fast, efficient and reliable, but also compassionate and caring towards our customers.”