Brand anniversaries and heritage are being celebrated across all areas. Do products and services face a challenge in positioning themselves in such a way to gain consumer trust?
Last year saw the ‘anniversary’ playing a big role in brand marketing across many sectors. Arla’s Anchor Butter was 125 years old, VW Golf was 35 years old, Dulux celebrated 50 years and Coca Cola celebrated their 125 years in business. Both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic also focussed their advertising and marketing efforts on showing off their long-lasting expertise and trustworthiness. This focus on brand heritage and reliability differentiates brands in an otherwise crowded marketplace, highlighting them as the go-to, having stood by consumers for a long time.
Featured image credit: PDD. Above image credit: Shareyourplace.org
Heritage and longevity have become powerful tools for brands. The global financial crisis has made consumers feel uncertain about looking forward into the future when the outlook for many can be so pessimistic. Like in past crises, consumers are left yearning for nostalgia, looking to safer, more reliable places to reflect.
Image credit: Stella Artois
Brands are responding to this by playing on consumer emotion, evoking memories and experiences through a heavy focus on their past heritage. Advertising in the UK in particular has been playing on this consumer sweet spot, with department store John Lewis and Volkswagen finding success by placing their products reliably throughout the consumer lifespan in their high-profile advertising campaigns. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee has come at the right time for more established brands with some re-issuing past packaging concepts and discontinued products or re-stocking ‘old favourites’.
Ghost signs, retro fonts, and ‘old faithful’ brand mascots are proving to resonate with consumers, creating a familiar, family-like bond to their products – just think of the reappearance of the Tetley ‘tea folk’ ads. Crabbie’s Ginger Beer, a newer alcoholic beverage has managed to use this trend to their advantage, creating their own heritage through 1950s style advertising.
Image credit: Crabbie’s
Many companies recognise that the market place has become so crowded with new products and brands that people are recognising that playing the heritage card and appealing to consumers as being a ‘trusted’ brand that has always been ‘part of the family’ is a strong message to differentiate themselves.
For newer brands though, the strategy is less clear. With companies needing to take a longer holistic view to position the visual design of their products and align this to their brand message in order to sensitively position their offer in the market while maximising impact.
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