Despite the refreshed image, the brand has retained its well-known Captain Birds Eye character on packaging, albeit with an updated design. Chantry explains that the high recognition scores and consumer affection for the character compelled the company to keep him. This was also the experience of cooking sauce brand Homepride, which relaunched its 50-year-old brand character Fred in a new TV campaign on 21 September (main image, top).
Helen Warren-Piper, savoury director at Premier Foods, Homepride’s parent company, says her team initially toyed with the idea of ditching Fred as part of its relaunch but it was met with strong opposition in focus groups. “The reaction from women when we showed them the new creative was ‘where’s Fred?’” she says.The popularity of brand characters such as the Churchill insurance dog or the meerkats that promote Comparethemarket.com show the value of easily identifiable brand icons. Insurance brand Columbus Direct elected to retain its own dog character when it redesigned earlier this year.
“Like the meerkats, Columbus is a memory icon,” says managing director Greg Lawson. “The growth of content marketing as a discipline demands the creation of brand personality, and that’s what we have tried to bring together.”
The company is expanding its offer from travel insurance to other areas such as home and breakdown cover. To reflect this, the company has refreshed its image by turning its 2D Columbus the dog into a CGI creation that will feature in TV advertising due to launch in November.
“We are looking at unprompted awareness and the extent to which people trust the brand,” he says.
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