Background
Abbey Vale Bakery was purchased by Averda International as part of its strategy to build a “food on the move” business in the UK. It was attracted by Abbey Vales successful manufacturing and wholesale distribution business, which produced a range of high quality frozen unbaked and chilled baked products for food service and retail clients. Their manufactured product range included pasties, pies and savouries.
Challenge
The primary objective of the research was to show consumers a range of newly developed logos, positioning statements and brand names with the objective of assessing their appeal and relevance. The respondents were also shown a range of new packaging concepts for key products featuring the new logos.
Solution
The research had one key objective – to develop a more relevant and effective corporate identity/brand which reflected the intrinsic brand values of the new Abbey Vale offering.
As we were intending to conduct a series of concept tests which required both group creative input and also required a considerable number of stimuli to be presented – a qualitative approach using a series of focus groups was used. Each group comprised 8 – 10 respondents.
We used recent MINTEL reports about the Pies and Pasties market to help guide the likely locations for the groups. We identified that there is widespread consumption of pies/pasties both as cold and hot snacks across all age groups and regions of the UK. However, there was a disproportionate bias for consumption amongst those aged 35-54. We concentrated on this age group in the regions with noted concentrations of pies/pasties/snack consumption and subsequently completed focus groups within Sainsbury’s stores in Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol.
Outcome
The qualitative information collected clearly identified the preferred creative concepts amongst the target audience and also facilitated further discussion around the supporting brand values – helping clarify the reasons to believe in the brand values and personality as well as identify the important discriminators and perceived “Essence“of the brand.
We worked with the client to help finalise the visual identity and brand values which were then taken forward across all the companies marketing collateral. Also as a result of the research, further work was commissioned to review the trading name and test other options for a sub brand using an UK wide Omnibus.
