Metropol

Snippet from Wiki that may explain it:

In 2009 Walmart 'sold' Asda for £6.9 billion to their Leeds-based investment subsidiary Corinth Services Limited.[16] The deal, which took place in August, was described as part of a “group restructuring” and means Asda remains under the control of Walmart, since Corinth are themselves a subsidiary of Walmart.[17]

Andrew Wood wrote:Snippet from Wiki that may explain it:

In 2009 Walmart 'sold' Asda for £6.9 billion to their Leeds-based investment subsidiary Corinth Services Limited.[16] The deal, which took place in August, was described as part of a “group restructuring” and means Asda remains under the control of Walmart, since Corinth are themselves a subsidiary of Walmart.[17]

It doesn't really; it's not as though that re-organisation made any difference to the legitimacy of the claim they were 'part of the Wal-mart family'. Add to that the move away from the brand happened earlier than that, and I think it's fair to say it had nothing to do with it.

I think james2001 was right to an extent; I think there was also a far greater presence of Wal-mart 'corporate' staff in Leeds in the years immediately following the buy out, whereas they're now largely left to do their own thing. There was a time when Wal-mart's (very American) 'great value' packaging was used, I can't find an example of that, but here's the American version of the time:


Interestingly, and something I didn't realise, is that a few years ago Wal-mart rebranded Great Value thusly:


And it seems Asda have bought Smart Price in line with this (or were at least inspired by that) in the most recent rebranding exercise:

I'd spotted that after a trip to the US last year. Or rather, that the Smart Price packaging was very similar to the Wal Mart Great Value range - I don't think that it had even twigged that the name was different.

On a similar note, Tesco are using the branding from their doomed US supermarket chain Fresh & Easy on prepared veg and easy cook meat:

thegeek wrote:On a similar note, Tesco are using the branding from their doomed US supermarket chain Fresh & Easy on prepared veg and easy cook meat

That's true - for coming up to twelve months now.

I note Tesco seem to finally be changing the finest logo and doing some major packaging refreshes with it.

Andrew Wood wrote:

thegeek wrote:On a similar note, Tesco are using the branding from their doomed US supermarket chain Fresh & Easy on prepared veg and easy cook meat

That's true - for coming up to twelve months now.

Yes, we covered it a while ago, I think the brand was even around here before the US chain launched. Someone at Tesco is clearly desperate for the brand to work in some capacity!

nodnirG kraM wrote: Don't think much of the new design though.

I think it could be quite damaging to the Finest range if they don't stop the roll out of that.

Quite like the look of the Swiss Co-Op's 'Fine Food' - quite similar to the original finest* (as it must be stylized now)



http://finefood.coop.ch/finefood/showProdukt.do?id=769

nodnirG kraM wrote:I particularly like the small print that accompanies Sainsbury's slogan.

It used to be a little bit more specific:

http://www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/s ... =DDC400141

Here's one for the font geeks. What is this font? I thought for a moment it was the Sainsbury's font but its not and whatthefont isn't liking it due to the tight kerning. Any ideas? I'm sure I recognise it.

It's Brady Bunch Remastered (just dig through the JS files included until you find the Cufon script and that gives you the details...)