Another High Street Rebrand

[woah]

The Argos at the end of my road is one of those fancy iPad extravaganzas and the ordering works fine but they really haven't thought through the collection part. There's no longer a collection number or time on your receipt and you now sort of awkwardly walk forward up through the crowd, one of the staff members wave you over behind one of the free standing desks and check if yours has arrived yet even though you can see it hasn't. Once that's been established you shuffle over the side joining the rest of the scum looking at their phones and looking up every time a box is put on the shelf before taking half a step forward and then back again when you realise it's not yours.

Get set for (your) box.

Have Argos still not realised that their advertising campaign doesn't make any grammatical sense?

They refitted all of stores here out of the blue around September/October in exactly the same way and they have exactly the same problems. They do look very nice, but it seems very odd that they got rid of the waiting areas and collection numbers - I wonder if they thought they were now efficient enough to get the product(s) in a short amount of time while the customer paid - though I can't imagine how they thought that would be possible, at least on a consistent basis.

Another issue I've noticed is that some of the older generation are confused by, or reluctant to use, the iPads. They seem a odd choice as well - while they're standard kit that's easy to replace, they're also a bit small and fiddly for some.

They also still use those self-service card only machines that use some sort of rubbish HTML application that uses the Argos branding on-screen from about 10 years ago.

[Alexia]

My local paper, the Hull Daily Mail, is getting a new look on Thursday (strange move to do it midweek, I'd have scheduled the change for the Monday if I were in charge). As a bunch of local newsagents have Mail branded signage, they'll need to be changed as well.

Perhaps Thursday is their biggest selling edition of the week.

[DJDave]

I noticed that Iceland has started using a new logo which is a new darker red colour and no gradient on it anymore. I can't seem to find a photo of it just yet though.

Edit* found it

[thegeek]

small Argos inside a large Homebase:







I did have a quick go on one of the iPads, and the two random items I found were in stock (rather than 'order now for tomorrow morning') - I wonder what sort of range they stock in what's obviously a fairly small storeroom?

[Critique]

We have an Argos inside our Homebase too, although it's a fair bit smaller, and they too do seem to stock some odd stuff. Looking on the website the stock does seem slightly random, with things you'd expect a little Argos to carry not there, and things you wouldn't expect in stock. They also had this slightly odd screen they had staff members (from the actual branch) waving on a loop when it first opened, although this has since disappeared.

Incidentally, I've noticed that the Argos website allows you to order things like large bags of Maltesers individually and collect them in store. This is very weird as no-one would order bags of maltesers, would they? I can almost understand things like the large Thornton's things, the chocolate reindeer at Christmas being an example, but ordering something you can pick up in pretty much every shop for the same price or less seems quite bizarre! I notice that the Argos in our Homebase sells the bags in front of the counter, so I wonder if there's some weird policy that if they sell it they must put it online, or if that's just the way their system works?

[Rainbow]

Not a high street rebrand but the breakfast cereal "Sugar Puffs" has recently changed it's name after nearly 60 or so years to "Honey Monster Puffs".

Reminds me of the time when Kellogg's "Coco Pops" changed thier name to "Choco Krispies" in the late 1990's only to change it back a few months later.

[Square Eyes]

Not a high street rebrand but the breakfast cereal "Sugar Puffs" has recently changed it's name after nearly 60 or so years to "Honey Monster Puffs".

Reminds me of the time when Kellogg's "Coco Pops" changed thier name to "Choco Krispies" in the late 1990's only to change it back a few months later.

This one makes sense though given the bad press that sugar gets these days.

[Philip]

Related: Bloomberg Businessweek on Kellogg (and cereal) struggling at the moment in the States. Doesn't appear to be a major issue over here yet, at least in the press.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/ ... -lost-hope

[Alexia]

Reminds me of the time when Kellogg's "Coco Pops" changed thier name to "Choco Krispies" in the late 1990's only to change it back a few months later.

"They should be called Choco Pops"

"They should be called Coco Krispies."

"You're BOTH right...."

*shudder* Bad enough that piece of boardroom corporate rebranding guff made it to the product, but to have it relayed to the kids by the well-known and in some cases loved cartoon characters who advertised them was unforgiveable.

[JAS84]

^They were trying to bring it into line with the US, where both Ricicles and Coco Pops are extensions of the Rice Krispies brand (Frosted Krispies and Choco Krispies) complete with the Snap Crackle and Pop mascots. At least the marketing heads didn't decide to go the whole hog and axe Coco Monkey, making it easy to reverse when the rebranding flopped.

[Alexia]

It's even more complicated than that -- other countries have Cocoa Krispies and Choco Pops too!