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Good Enough to Eat: The Best Easter Packaging of 2013

Here at Bloom, we all enjoyed last weekend’s excuse to consume our body-weights in egg-shaped confectionary and I suspect we weren’t the only ones. According to a recent study reported in Confectionary News, Easter is primarily associated with chocolate for 62% of Brits (compared with just 12% who primarily associate it with Jesus).  

In the midst of our enthusiastic guzzling, however, we did come across a few Easter treats that were literally too good to eat. Here’s our round-up of 2013’s best Easter packaging: 

Best for Children: Smarties Hen House

The hen house’s window reveals a golden egg and a chocolate hen with an egg inside, adding a playful element of discovery to this innovative alternative to the traditional Easter Egg.   

Best for Grown-ups: Hotel Chocolat All Milk Collection

Hotel Chocolat’s All Milk Easter Collection added a rare touch of sophistication to this Easter’s offerings. The delicate, black, white and gold carousel box features a traditional Easter design dating back to the 1930s. The extra-thick egg it contains comes with a chocolate tablet embossed with the same scene. 

 Best of the Countline Treats: Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chick With Easter Buttons.

Only the most cynical Easter shopper could resist this smiling chick. Better yet, unlike most countline Easter treats, this chick isn't hollow, but filled with Cadbury’s iconic Milky Buttons.

 Best for Traditional Fun and Games: Cadbury’s Easter Egg Trail Pack

Cadbury’s colourful, basket shaped trail pack provides you with all you need to construct your own Easter Egg hunt, for some nostalgic family fun. 

 

Best for Gourmands: Rococo’s Praline Quail Eggs and Salted Caramel Seagull Eggs

Rococo’s Praline Quail Eggs and Salted Caramel Seagull Eggs are ideal for those seeking up-market alternatives to the traditional hen’s egg. Nestled in tastefully rustic crates, the delicately speckled eggs could easily masquerade for the real thing.

 

Most Eco-Friendly: Elizabeth Shaw

Elizabeth Shaw’s Easter packaging was designed for minimal wastage. The egg did not even require any extra fixtures to position it, as the box was cleverly constructed to grip it in place.

 

Best Offering from a Non-Chocolate Brand: Rowntree’s Randoms

Colourful, exuberant and delightfully random, Rowntree’s packaging for its sweetie-filled egg was perfectly on-brand and, with no plastic window, it was eco-friendly too.

 

 

 

Riding High

There’s been a bit of a change in the reading material causing a stir in the Bloom office this week. Instead of the usual copies of Design Week and Creative Review, we’ve all been pouring over the April Issue of Horse & Rider. That’s because this month’s issue features our very own Account Director, Francesca Newman.

The six page feature shows Francesca, a seasoned competitor, demonstrating the tricky art of dressage riding. 

 

 

The evolution of the challenger brand paradigm

There is no doubt that Adam Morgan’s book “Eating The Big Fish”, first published in 1999, has had a profound impact on how we perceive the relationship between the underdog and the brand leaders. This seminal book was dramatic in its honesty about how precarious life is for the little fish in an environment utterly dominated by big fish. As a solution Morgan offered eight credos that were intended to be a compass with which these challenger brands could navigate and set new rules of engagement to disrupt the status quo and “eat the big fish.” 

In 2009 the second edition of “Eating The Big Fish” has evolved the term “challenger brand” into twelve different challenger stances from “The Irreverent Maverick” to “The People’s Champion.” Indeed the archetypal David vs. Goliath challenger stance, whereby a brand launches a directly positioned attack on the market leader with the intention of replacing it, is problematic as many brands today are adopting alternative routes to earn their challenger status. In addition, often when the little fish become the market leaders they gradually shed the values and ethics that propelled them into that position in the first place.

 

Dollar Shave Club demonstrates the evolution of the challenger model perfectly and falls into the category of the “Value Changer” - offering a proposition focused on superior value for money.

Despite being a tiny contender, Dollar Shave Club succeeded in muddying the clear waters of the shaving market when it launched its unconventional and entertaining YouTube video, which has achieved over six million views.

Although it is essentially challenging the shaving giant Gillette, at the heart of this company is a product that is sincerely valued. The brand achieves a distinct visual identity through the use of wooden imagery and a heritage-style seal to compliment its clubhouse theme, which differentiates it from the sleek and ultramodern razors produced by the rest of the category. As a result this is primarily a brand-led challenge that offers quality razors at a cheaper price and not simply a David vs. Goliath scenario.

Often successful challenger brands begin to face an identity crisis after they become leading players in their market and thereby outgrow their challenger positioning. Virgin Atlantic certainly demonstrated its challenger credentials when it dared to take on British Airways using its unconventional brand personality to agitate its conservative counterpart. Having earned a place as one of the best long-haul airlines, can Virgin still be considered a challenger brand? Virgin’s marketing trends certainly suggest that the brand has been loyal to its mischievous personality that propelled it into the position it is in today. 

Virgin’s 2009 “Still red hot” advert, which celebrated the business’ 25^th birthday, was launched during an economic downturn. At a time when the airline industry saw passenger numbers falling, Virgin deliberately swam against the prevailing cultural tide and increased its marketing spend. This gives credence to the argument that Virgin is still a challenger at heart, as it continues to adhere to its core values – that flying should be a pleasure, not a chore – even during a recession.

Apple is an exemplary challenger brand that dramatically ate the big fish, Microsoft. Yet it is arguably beginning to act like the very brand it set out to defeat. Recently Apple won a lawsuit against their rivals, Samsung, which saw a jury order the latter to pay the former $1 billion for patent infringement. This is not the behaviour of a challenger brand and is perhaps more symptomatic of a market leader wielding a club to protect its position.

The shift in the challenger brand paradigm is evident as brands seek new and innovative ways to disrupt the marketplace. In particular, brands are actively avoiding the formulaic David vs. Goliath scenario of a direct challenge to the market leader and are forging alternative routes instead. Moreover, if a challenger brand does become the market leader it must reconcile its new position with the core values that define it, or else it becomes an adaptation of the brand it set out to crush and ironically may suffer the same fate.

 

 

Live Advent Calendar

To celebrate Christmas at Bloom, this year we've decided to have a live advent calendar where each day someone would bring the Christmas cheer to Bloom.

As one might have imagined, much food was consumed and much cheer was had.

Here's a little snippet of all the activities...

 

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a jolly good 2013.

We'll be back next year. 

 

Bloom's Children in Need fundraising

Today we've had a special day at Bloom: Request Fridays. A song could be requested to be played at Bloom's offices against a donation, all in aid of the BBC Children in Need.

We've raised a nice total of £300. Thanks to everyone who donated.

We've also thought of sharing the spotify playlist for all the curious ears out there.

 

Pleasure in a pop-up

It is no longer enough for brands to deliver satisfication simply through a quality product. Brands today, must 'excite me, involve me and respect me as an individual'.  No small task for businesses who historically drive profit margins through uniformity and volume. Hence the rise of the pop-ups.

Pop-ups are the perfect platform - a single-minded branded presence on the high street offering pure brand theatre through experience and engagement. Cost effective against the exposure they generate, they offer a visible and real channel to celebrate the brand by creating something special if only for a limited time.

So hats off to Magnum who have just opened up a pop up store in Westfield Stratford (conveniently near to a certain global event starting in a few days). We recently heard about the 'Make your own Magnum pop up store" and had to go check it out. All in the name of research, of course.

With 2 types of ice cream (vanilla or chocolate & caramel), 18 toppings ranging from caramel swirls to coconut shavings to edible rose petals, 3 dipping chocolate sauces (white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate) and the option to drizzle some more chocolate on top, there are over 104,500 different possibilities to create your own Magnum. 

 

Magnum-inspired cocktails were also available at the bar.

 

Twitter campaign to go hand in hand with the pop-up store

Our creation was a chocolate & caramel Infinity ice-cream dipped in white chocolate topped with hazelnuts, popping candy and brownies and finally drizzled with dark chocolate.

If that wasn't enough, once you've created your guilty indulgence you are invited to sit in the 'Pleasure Pod', to measure the pleasure that you give out whilst eating it.

 

The pod records your sensory output through measures of skin tension, facial expression, deglutition (aka swallowing) and heartbeat to capture your responses and displays them through a series of visual animations chart the pleasure journey.

This is just a short interpretation of the visual animation inside The Pleasure Pod.

 

Congratulations to Magnum and Unilever for creating such a compelling brand experience. So Mars was wrong...here is an example of Pleasure you can Measure.

5 questions in 5 minutes - Performing in the Olympic Ceremonies

With one week to go before the start of the London 2012 Olympics, Bloom has some exciting Olympic news.  Anna, one of our client servicing team, can finally reveal that she will be performing in both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Keen to know more we've managed to interrogate her between client meetings and rehearsals for a quick 5 questions in 5 minutes. 

Q: So Anna, what are you going to be doing?

A: My title is "Placard Bearer" in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies which basically consists of leading athletes round the stadium.

 

Q: Sounds exciting. How did it all come about?

A: It all started in April 2011 - I saw an advert on the Olympic website inviting people 'to get involved in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies". After I applied, I was called for a dancing audition which was a bit of a concern as I am NOT a dancer - I think that soon became apparent at the audition, because they changed my role to a Placard Bearer!

 

Q: What's your overall verdict of what you've seen so far?

A: Amazing! Crazy, unpredictable and very entertaining.

 

Q: Looking forward to it. Do you secretly wish you're dancing now?

A: The dance routine will amazing on the night but I'm really happy with my section. It's probably best that I'm not dancing.

 

Q: And finally, can you tell us a Bloom exclusive? For example, what nation will you be presenting or what colour is your outfit?

A: mmm... Can't really tell you anything - but it's definitely not one specific colour. (That narrows it down) All will be revealed on the night...

 

So true to her obligations she's being tight lipped about the detail. We tried.

Good luck Anna! We're sure you will do your adopted nation proud. We'll be looking out for you in what will no doubt be the greatest global spectacle of the year. 

 

 

Consumer's verdict on patriotic packs

As a follow up to our blog article in May - A Title wave of Patriotism - here's an interesting video of consumers discussing their reaction to a selection of the many patriotic packs launched earlier this year to celebrate the Jubillee, the Olympics and the United Kingdom. Commisioned by Packaging News this is an interesting insight around how these packs have or have not improved their perception of these brands.

 

 

Red, white and Bloom

Today, at Bloom, we gave a nod (and had a toast) to Queen and country with a red, white and blue dress code.

 
We wish you all a wonderful Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend.

 

 

A tidal wave of patriotism

We all love a good reason to celebrate. And this summer, London is not only gearing up for the Olympics but also for H.R.H. The Queen's Jubilee Celebrations and not forgetting the annual Wimbledon Tennis Championship. So with that combination, it does not come as a surprise that every week we see established brands emerging with limited editions to play a role in national optimism. 

Whilst the Olympic brand (such as the Olympic rings, the torch and the flame) is protected, in order to ensure that sponsors get the exclusivity they have paid for, the national flag and the Queen’s equities are rather more permissive. As a consequence the iconic Union Jack is fast becoming omniprescent throughout the high street. A poignant symbol of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it tackles both the recognition of our Queen's 60 year reign and a message of support for 'Team Great Britain' as well as an opportunity to align brands to a culture of British pride.  So how are brands doing it?

 

Patriotic Pride

An unadulturated celebration of all things British is the brief here. Aligning the brand with the Union Jack in a way that is both relevant and appropriate. British flavoured / themed limited edition products are fast emerging every where. Here are just a few. 

1950’s Revival

Brands will always seize on the opportunity to remind us of their enduring appeal through landmark milestones. Several brands have dug into their archives to bring back some classic designs from yesteryear to remind us how long they've been gracing our cupboards. The Jubilee and its retrospective celebration of Britain over the years provides the perfect stage.

 

Diamonds, crowns and jewels

This category embraces brands that have earnt their right to celebrate the Jubilee through receipt of the Royal Warrant. Some are more overt whereas others a little more understated and elegant.

It would be a shame not to mention some of the great brands that Bloom has been working with to celebrate these occasions. A couple of months ago we couldn't move in the studio for the cultural british images and the red, white and blue flags filling our screens. Here's a few of the brands we've aligned with this wonderful occasion.

                              

    

 

Finally the Museum of Brands are curating an exhibition ‘Jubilee, Jubilee’ which is showcasing souvenirs and commemorative products made to mark the royal jubilees of the past, as well as the newly released keepsakes launched to commemorate this year’s Diamond Jubilee.

And with all the excitement this summer and the wave of patriotism sweeping the country, we wish The Queen a happy anniversary, Team GB all the best at the Olympics, England every success at Euro 2012 and hope that this might be Andy Murray's year to win Wimbledon!

Here's to all things British.

For futher examples of celebration packs click on our Flickr stream on the right of this post.