Yet another Morrisons thread

[rdobbie]

I can't believe it's now 21 months since the new tree logo.

We're now at that annoying but interesting mid-point in own brand logo replacement cycles where momentum always seems to fizzle away.

Expunging the whole 'Signature' range and replacing it with 'The Best' + tree logo was clearly treated as top priority and boxed off very quickly.

However, the 'M savers' range is as yet completely untouched, still featuring the old M inside an ellipse.

The standard mid-range own brand is the predictable mish-mash of old and new branding. Entire categories like crisps and soft drinks are yet to see any sign of the tree logo.

It will probably be like the last Sainsbury's and Tesco logo changes, where the old logo took 10-15 years to completely disappear from packaging.

[woah]

I can't believe it's now 21 months since the new tree logo.

We're now at that annoying but interesting mid-point in own brand logo replacement cycles where momentum always seems to fizzle away.

Expunging the whole 'Signature' range and replacing it with 'The Best' + tree logo was clearly treated as top priority and boxed off very quickly.

However, the 'M savers' range is as yet completely untouched, still featuring the old M inside an ellipse.

The standard mid-range own brand is the predictable mish-mash of old and new branding. Entire categories like crisps and soft drinks are yet to see any sign of the tree logo.

It will probably be like the last Sainsbury's and Tesco logo changes, where the old logo took 10-15 years to completely disappear from packaging.

It does seem to be taking them a while but they're getting there slowly but surely - recently they've updated the lunch range, ready meals and the deli counter packaging but like you say a lot the day to day items are yet to be done. It's a shame because the new packaging is a lot more appealing.

It's actually the same at the Co-op but they do seem to have had the vast majority of their (admittedly smaller) range rebranded a lot more quickly. There's still plenty of odd bits though like medicines, frozen meals, pet food etc that have been forgotten about.

One thing that the new Morrisons packaging does include is where some ingredients, particularly meat, are sourced. That's not necessarily a good thing because it shows a lot of their prepared chicken comes from Thailand and Brazil - surprising for a supermarket that tends to highlight how a lot of what it does is locally sourced/made in store etc. - and I must admit it puts me off. ASDA and Tesco also have the same issue.

[woah]

Just to add to the Morrisons branding inconsistency - they seem to be missing a trick not rebranding their delivery vans, they're essentially mobile billboards and so they're another great way of spreading an updated brand. And yet they're exactly the same as in 2013 when they launched their delivery service, and even more bizarrely I've spotted a couple of 2016/2017 model vans that still have the same old branding.

[all new Phil]

A good few weeks ago now, they randomly decided to stick what looks like a strip of wood along the top of the fridges in the fruit and veg section. I'm guessing they did this everywhere as both local stores to me had them. Nothing else on them, just a wood effect. They looked shit.

Anyway, good news - one of the two local stores has just had all their fruit and veg units clad in something similar and they've introduced a load of rather lovely POS to it all. What started as a horror story has developed into something quite wonderful.

Bad news as well though - the bananas remain in hammocks. They had an opportunity to bring back and possibly reinvent their revolutionary (in more ways than one) banana hanging system but, on this occasion, they haven't taken it.

[jonathan]

Good to read that Morrisons will not adopt 'fake-farm food' brands.

[Critique]

Had my first visit to a Morrison's Daily store yesterday, which was a forecourt store that used to operate under Booker's Family Shopper fascia (and before that Mace). A very nice store inside, certainly looking better than it had under any previous brand, which is impressive considering the move to Booker was only a few years ago, and they'd refreshed it inside then as well. They'd reduced the amount of back office/stockroom space in the refit to make space for more room on the shop floor, and had added some form of Bakery as well.

Also, a bit of an oddity - as a BP garage you can collect Nectar points inside, which makes it fairly unique as a Morrison's store! I wonder if they accept the More card as well?

[sqwidge1978]

Morrison are in the process of updating their Saver range to new packaging woth the new logo
Old

New

[WillPS]

Looks worse - I wonder if that's intentional.

Uploaded that image for comparison when Morrisons update it here: https://up.metropol247.co.uk/WillPS/old_m_savers.jpg

[bilky asko]

It's a bit like those 850g (formerly 1kg) bars of Dairy Milk - it's not going to be the cheapest way to acquire that quantity of the chocolate, it's a novelty.

Unless you win one for 50p at an amusement arcade.

[thegeek]

I saw the 4.5kg bars in Zurich Airport duty free a couple of years back, where they were retailing for 129 CHF, which is around the £100 mark. So either the airport is a rip-off or Morrisons have a bargain.

(Standard sized bars are sbout 0.8p to 1p per gram, so at 1.2p/gram this isn't terrible value, but I'd still wait for a post-Christmas markdown.)

[rdobbie]

Is this taking minimalism a bit too far?