Thursday, 21 April 2011

Goodbye Bensons – HELLO ‘Ciggies’

The recent Federal Government announcements on plain cigarette packaging  could mark the end of  40 year war against the tobacco industry. That industry  is up in arms and threatening multi-million dollar law suits. Perhaps evidence of how deeply this latest assault will impact the ‘brands’?

Over the years the tobacco industry has been quite remarkable in maintaining strong brands in the face of restrictions that would have sounded the death knell for other categories.   

In the 1970s tobacco companies were banned from using overtly glamorous or ‘cool’ imagery, so they resorted to an increasingly surreal approach to selling their wares. The result was arguably some of the best press ads and posters of a generation with oblique images of gold pyramids and ripped silk. For a while it seemed that the tighter you squeezed the industry, the more creative it became.

But that’s all about to change, no more ads, no more seductive packaging, no more brands, no more cigarettes.

Result = true happiness? Well perhaps its not that simple.

The fact is that you can take away the brand identity but the need that created the category will remain?

All you are left with is a single, mass market of ‘ciggies’ with similar look, price and taste (just a different name to pay lip service to their origin). It might stop me posing with an expensive brand I think says something about me, but does it stop me smoking? I doubt it. For the vast majority of smokers this is about addiction first and fashion a far distant second.

At the DM group we work with clients to create brands that positively differentiate them from the competition, our successes with  blue chip clients are testiment to our creativity. If you’d like to know more, why not give us a call.

Malcolm Harvey – Client Services Director