Bread Line Design

Big name high street brands come and go. Some, like Orange seem to go from strength to strength, others like Woolworths seem to just plod along and some, like the now defunct C&A die or leave British shores altogether. To stay ahead of the competition brands must continually evolve and occasionally reinvent themselves. Marks and Spencer are a great example of how a failing high street brand revolutionised its image and turned around profits.

When a big well know organisation re-brands they can of course hard launch their new identity, with much fanfare and promotion (as Marks and Spencers did), or soft launch, gradually making a smooth transition from old to new without alienating existing consumers. Deciding which style of launch shouldn’t be taken lightly; if the Olympic logo had been soft launched the media and public reaction would have been far less venomous than it was.

Often high street re-brands are long overdue. The Car Phone Warehouse has long needed to re-brand, as they are the market leader in high street mobile retail, and yet they don’t sell car phones, nor are their shops warehouses. The name clearly needs changing. Sure enough though, change is afoot, as they are now soft launching “The Phone House” in Britain, having already done so in Europe. What surprises me is how badly this launch is being handled. Several shops have changed their signs yet there is no printed literature, nor reference made on the website. The website itself features both old and new logos on the splash page at www.phonehouse.com yet no mention on www.carphonewarehouse.com . With Phones 4 U aggressively attacking the already saturated mobile market place, The Phone House needs to stop dithering and hard launch as soon as possible.

For all the money and time spent on branding and marketing it’s the consumers who decide which brands succeed and which fail, but if confusion and doubt over identity set in, competitors will be quick to punish. Get the strategy right and the brand will be rewarded with new life, and the company with new profits. Get it wrong and the work to undo the damage could be immense.

For more info on soft and hard launching this article on CRN is well worth a read.