Monthly Roundup – November 2018

Welcome back to the Trident Monthly round-up!

The aim of these monthly posts is to keep you abreast of all the weird and wonderful news and insights to come out of the world of marketing. Every month, our team will pick our favourite campaigns, brand insights and marketing trends that you can use to enhance your marketing knowledge or even as inspiration to delight your audience.

So let’s get cracking with our top stories from November:

Aldi – #SaveKevin

Yes, we know it is too early to talk about Christmas! But we couldn’t ignore Aldi’s brand new Christmas campaign, making them the first of the big supermarkets to release one this year.

Kevin the Carrot, returns as the frontman of the campaign for a third year with a parody of Coca-Cola’s enduring Truck spot. Many people we spoke to actually thought this was the Coca-Cola advert when they saw it on TV. This was a brilliant move on Aldi’s behalf as many people associate the Coca-Cola advert as the signal to “Christmas Season”, but they anticipated all their competitors and managed to be in the consumers’ thought process before everyone else. The advert also finishes on a captivating cliffhanger which entices the viewers to see what happens next and interact on social media with #SaveKevin.

The final full advert itself was released a few days ago and showed Kevin trying to save his family from danger. We felt the whole “Save Kevin” concept was not carried through fully as he ended up saving his family in the end. Overall though this advert was very well received on Social Media and many people claim it is better than the John Lewis advert!

Over to you John Lewis…

Ikea – The Chair

That chair in your bedroom. How many times do you actually use it as a chair?

In this print campaign, the Swedish furniture giant is playing on the notion that most people use their chairs as clothes hangers, which means you hardly get to see the chair, because of all the clutter on it! So, would you rather spend £385 on a chair you might never get to appreciate or an Ikea chair for a third of the price which will do the same job?

Very simple concept but well executed by Ikea.

Chevrolet – Halloween

The month of November/October, of course, brought us a lot of Halloween campaigns to keep in with the spirit of dressing up and carving pumpkins.

One of our favourite Halloween campaigns came from US car maker Chevrolet, who in this print campaign show us their latest cars modelled as a Halloween Pumpkin. As you know, here at Trident we are big fans of simple yet impactful campaigns, which may not have big budgets, but are backed up by a strong concept and executed well. This Chevrolet campaign is a perfect example of that. The campaign was cost-effective, yet was used both offline (on billboards, and print magazines) but also adapted for online use on Social Media.

The Re-brand of Azerbaijan

Ever been to Azerbaijan?

Azerbaijan has completely refreshed and rebranded to address the low tourism problem, in a bid to boost tourism to the Middle Eastern country and teach people that there is more to it than “oil, carpets and Eurovision”. A bright colour palette of blue, green, yellow, pink and purple, used alongside white, accompanies the new brand, with many pattern-focused illustrations and photos, referencing the country’s history of intricate patterns used on everything from stained-glass windows and ceramics to carpets. A serif typeface is used alongside the core sans-serif. Azerbaijan is currently a growing tourist destination, having generated over $1.3bn (£992 million) from visitors in 2017. It has previously been associated with the Eurovision Song Contest, having won the competition in 2011 and subsequently hosting it in 2012. The new Branding is definitely making us consider Azerbaijan as a possible holiday destination in the future, it will be interesting to see the impact of the rebrand on its tourism.

(Source: Design Week)

Small Family Business – Big Rebrand!

Cocoa Jones is a small family-run company that was founded in 2017 by husband and wife, Michael Ogazi and Naz Khan, who are Nigerian and Pakistani respectively. To represent the different cultures of the company’s two founders, they have come up with a variety of packaging illustrations, with bold colours and patterns. The illustrations have been inspired by traditional Islamic and African patterns found on textiles, again referencing the founders, and look to “bring together two cultures on pack”. The colours and abstract shapes used also look to reference the ingredients contained within each bar. We’re big fans of the concept and execution of the branding, giving it a distinct look from other Chocolate brands, and portraying a classy and upmarket brand. This re-brand is a great example of how smaller companies can compete with larger firms with a strong concept and great branding. Source: Design Week

Thanks for reading our November round-up, make sure to keep an eye out for our next one in December!