Another High Street Rebrand

[gottago]

I understand that the whole Jersey VAT loophole has been closed, which sort of killed off the cheap CDs and DVDs racket - but I don't understand why Rakuten aren't using the play.com brand for their new streaming service. You know, the one with yer actual Buzz Aldrin in the adverts. And the really memorable name.

The whole Rakuten things seems like madness to me too. What they've done is a bit like an unknown company buying Google then relegating it to a secondary brand.

Also what's the website address? You'd think it was rakutenplay.com from the header and emails call it Rakutan's Play.com, all a bit confusing. Surely all the English language websites they run should probably just adopt the brilliantly simple Play brand?

They did exactly the same thing to US site Buy.com - a perhaps even more memorable domain name, which has now fully transitioned to Rakuten.com. I presume Play.com will eventually transition to Rankuten.com as its UK arm.

Also, based on this awful corporate video on their US site, I bet not one of us has been pronouncing it correctly.

Why are they pronouncing it like that? It's got a U in it.

What an awful brand.

[WillPS]

Three years after the takeover, I find it interesting that Kraft has never placed its own logo on the back of any Cadbury's product, contrary to its usual policy of doing this to every acquired brand in its extensive global portfolio. I assume this may be to do with the negative feeling towards Kraft in the UK at the way the Cadbury's takeover was handled (particularly the broken promises on job losses).

I also note that Kraft-owned Toblerone have infiltrated this year's boxes of Cadbury's Heroes despite them not being a Cadbury's product. Maybe we'll also see Terry's Chocolate Orange segments appearing in the future?

Possibly to do with Kraft themselves spinning off Kraft Foods and rebranding as Mondelēz.

To follow up on this, today in Tesco I checked [Terry's] Chocolate Orange - which have been owned by Mondelēz a fair while and certainly had the Kraft logo at some point, and it didn't have either brand, only Mondelēz customer service details. The same was true of [new] Chocolate Orange Minis. So I guess the policy you refer to is no more, and it's not just related to Cadbury.

[simonipswich]

For a brand with the cache of Cadburys Dairy Milk, it's surprising how often they seem to revise their branding. Are they losing market share or something?

The taste of Cadbury's now is cr@p since they moved the entire production line from Birmingham (and elsewhere in the UK) to Poland. It's not the same anymore, I won't buy Cadbury's chocolate, Galaxy is the next best alternative.

[wells]

The taste of Cadbury's now is cr@p since they moved the entire production line from Birmingham (and elsewhere in the UK) to Poland.

I'm not sure that's quite true though, is it? They closed down their factory near Bristol. But there hasn't been massive job losses in Birmingham has there?

Also suggestion is the change in shape might be the reason it tastes different.

What I find interesting is they make Dairy Milk and Caramello for the Irish market in Ireland still and big play is made of it. Also Flake for our market, and a few others we get here are made their too.

[thegeek]

It's very.. red.

[cwathen]

It's very.. red.

I prefer it to the cyan backdrop of the previous brand. Interesting that they've gone for just the 'A' with the line underneath on the flag box sign though - they don't use an icon in that way anywhere else on their branding and I don't see that it's recognisable enough to say 'Argos' on it's own.

[Philip]

That logo still feels very generic compared to the previous incarnation.

[wells]

they don't use an icon in that way anywhere else on their branding and I don't see that it's recognisable enough to say 'Argos' on it's own.

But surely you have to start somewhere.

That logo still feels very generic compared to the previous incarnation.

The old logo looks dated in comparison though.

[Critique]

Sainsbury's have been very quick in rolling the new logo/livery out to the delivery vans, I note. I certainly haven't seen any sporting the old logo in the past month or so - this is quite refreshing compared to how long it took Sky to change the logos on their vans/update the livery so it wasn't *still* advertising Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit being 'on Sky Movies' or the Simpsons on Sky ONC.

[thegeek]

Wimpy (yes, they're still going) appear to have changed their brand to something that's harking back to the original.

ye olde:


this is how it looked last time I saw one (in Epping, just last year - though it was closed for refurbishment):


the new (apparently rolling out since 2008 - who knew?):


in some places, they appear to be using the Matt Groening handwriting font for their tagline:


but that's by no means consistent:


They also have two websites: http://www.wimpy.uk.com and http://www.wimpyuk.co.uk, and an engaging social media strategy.

[JAS84]

That new logo is actually the original logo used in the 60s and 70s. It was replaced by what you thought was the original logo in the 1980s.