Names – as Waitrose has just discovered – can be unintentionally misleading. Waitrose has found itself on the end of negative publicity from both the National Farmers’ Union and customers for calling its range of ready meals “British”. Waitrose chose the name to reflect the origin of the recipes, for example lamb hotpot and shepherd’s pie. However, other people interpreted the label to mean British…
Grain is now fifteen years old! Last Friday, clients and friends joined us for a celebration in grand style at Soho House’s Apartment. We’re not just celebrating 15 years in business but 15 years of doing what we love: inspiring companies and helping them to be successful. The party quiz winners are the BEAR team with 17 correct answers. Mandy had 15, David C 14, Virginie S…
In the mid-1990s, well before the internet had tangled us all in its worldwide web, Michael Porter set the benchmarks for marketing strategy which still resonate today. To sum up some quite complex theory, he argued that brands either had to achieve cost leadership or they had to differentiate. In a nutshell, differentiation is what allows luxury and fashion brands to charge so much more…
The National Federation of Property Professionals (NFoPP) has rebranded and repositioned as the umbrella brand Propertymark and the changes, developed by Grain Creative, are aiming to significantly disrupt the estate and letting agency market in the UK. Through its membership associations, the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), the new Propertymark brand has over 4,000 member branches…
Changing a well-established and well-known brand with all its existing brand attributes, brand promises and emotional ties can be like the clichéd oil tanker which needs a very long time to change course. There are still people who call a Snickers bar “Marathon”! It can be a challenge to say the least. But to rebrand the biggest brand you’ve never heard of, in essence an invisible brand…
Clothes – from many retailers – have become almost disposable: we buy them cheaply, wear them for a few months and then chuck them out. Many people are aware that super-cheap clothes may be manufactured in inhumane conditions, but do we stop to think about the environmental impact of simply binning stretched t-shirts and odd socks? It takes up to 3,000 litres of water to…
We are very happy to welcome our new project and studio manager, Briony Harris, to the team. Briony comes from the world of media, having spent 16 years with the BBC writing scripts, social media content and copy for the news website, and most recently on 12+ hour shifts producing Radio 4’s The World Tonight. At Grain, she has spread out her time in a more reasonable manner,…
In November, we launched a Fashion Marketing Consultancy Live Project, a collaboration between Grain and the Fashion Marketing team of the Fashion & Textiles Department, University of East London. The project, led by second-year UEL Fashion Marketing students, aims to help students understand what it’s like working in an agency environment and to further develop creative and strategic thinking in fashion business. The project is jointly developed…
Do you have a birth certificate? I had taken mine for granted until my recent visit to the TRAID offices. We’ve been supporting TRAID this year through our membership in 1% for the Planet. We chose them because of their appealing goals. TRAID is a charity working to stop clothes from being thrown away. We turn clothes waste into funds and resources to reduce the environmental…
Relations between Iceland the country and Iceland the supermarket chain have been frosty for quite some time. And the cold war warmed up in November as the country announced it was going to legally challenge the use of the company’s trademark, arguing that while the supermarket has attempted to freeze them out from using the word Iceland, it has benefitted from positive media coverage about the…
It was ironic to read Cal Newport’s Deep Work on the Kindle app on my iPhone, considering that the device is full of alluring distractions. The first part of the book argues why deep, focused and uninterrupted work is valuable, with section titles including: Deep work helps you quickly learn hard things Deep work helps you produce at an elite level Deep work is rare The typical work environment…
There are very few brands that are quite as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as Marks & Spencer. The marketing management must go through exceptional highs and lows during focus groups. First the moderator asks about M&S Food and Wine and hears the consumer perceptions of innovation, aspiration, quality and reliability, but when the questions move on to clothing they find hostility and indifference to ranges…
A £600m name that no-one will ever know. DAMAC, the Dubai-based property company, has been in the news lately as it has appointed Australia’s Lendlease to build the high rise property, now known as Aykon London One, on the site in Nine Elms Battersea London. The interiors of the 50-storey building have been designed by Versace and the offices and residential apartments facing the…