Craftsman Logos

Innocent, who make Innocent Smoothies and other naturally good drinks and food are encouraging consumers to unleash their romantic side in the run up to Valentine’s Day. As an alternative gift idea for your loved one, Innocent is giving you the opportunity to personalise a label on their favourite Innocent smoothie.

The company have launched a dedicated site, valentines.innocentdrinks, where you can generate your own “love label” to print out and stick onto a smoothie bottle. More information on Innocents Valentine’s campaign can also be found on their Facebook, Twitter sites as well as online advertisements.

Innocent have altered their logo which is a circular face with two eyes and a halo so it is now heart shaped to fit the logo’s and the theme better. On the dedicated site you can pick your favourite smoothie and edit the label to include phrases such as, “It may or may not have an aphrodisiac effect. Sip it and see,” and “It’s a gift from someone who’ll set your groin on fire”.

You will also be able to choose from a range of poems or messages to appear on the labels or if you have a creative side you can write your own.

Innocent Smoothie label

Last year Tesco announced their ‘Big Price Drop’ to much fanfare. However after being beaten by the likes of Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s over the Christmas period and having £5billion knocked off their market share the supermarket giant has decided to revert back to their voucher system.

It was clear to many that their price drop scheme would be a failure after many news publications printed at the time all Tesco had done in the weeks preceding the price drop was to increase prices, so that when they dropped prices customers weren’t really saving any money. A dirty tactic which backfired on the supermarket chain, when shoppers realised what had been done, they then left in droves, taking their customer to Tesco’s main rivals.

Their new national print campaign offers customers a £5-off voucher when they spend more than £40 on a shop, features the strapline; “a helping hand from Tesco” and is backed up by the statement, “It’s just our way of saying ‘thanks’”.

It does seem like Tesco is tempting customers back with the vouchers, however what people really want is the truth from supermarkets. Chief executive Philip Clark admitted that the supermarket was wrong to switch its strategy away from voucher activity over the Christmas period.

Tesco’s rivals Sainsbury’s saw a record-breaking Christmas on the back of its Brand Match strategy, where customers saw prices matched of brands sold by Tesco and Asda via vouchers provided at the till.

The Tesco offer has been running this week, however there isn’t any indication on how long it will last for, but it is also available to customers shopping online as well.

Popular coffee chain Starbucks has launched a new reward programme for their customers called My Rewards, which will offer additional benefits to customers who become “Gold Level members” after 50 visits. This new reward scheme will replace the company’s current prepay members cards, those existing customers who already have the prepay cards will be automatically upgraded to gold members.

In the future this scheme could potentially be extended to offer bespoke offers to members and additional levels, according to Brian Waring, the newly promoted vice president of marketing for the EMEA region.

As well as launching the new reward scheme, Starbucks are also introducing a transactional iPhone app which will allow transactional iPhone app and later on in the year an Android app will also be launched.

The new rewards scheme works by rewarding customers with a ‘star’ per purchase, you will receive a free drink for every fifteen stars collected. The company believe that this loyalty scheme “feels personal, and is easy to understand”.

The scheme has already started running in the US and Canada and has proven to be popular with customers. Starbucks have also made a number of other efforts to improve the experience of its customers by adding free Wi-Fi and downloads, as they put it to “add further value and give customers more reasons to choose Starbucks”.

Ian Cranna, the new vice president of marketing for Starbucks UK, says: “We’ve listened carefully and we know that now, more than ever, customers are looking for extra value. This scheme also allows us to be more personal, rewarding the most frequent customers with extra benefits. We also know that fewer customers want to use cash, so putting My Starbucks Reward on mobiles offers a faster, easier way to pay.”

Starbucks logo

It’s been five years since Baxters have advertised on TV and this weekend see’s their return as the company plan to boost their investment of the soup brand. Their ad will debut during the ad break on ITV’s popular programme Downtown Abbey.

It will feature a couple of friends, who are faced with unexpected visitors they then create an “unforgettable Lochside experience” using Baxters products. The new advertisement was created by agency The Leith Agency and it; aims to show the “expertise” and “best quality ingredients” that go into Baxters products. The adverts will then come to an end at the end of November.

The new TV advert also coincides with the launch of Baxters new website Baxters.com on which users can share and review their favourite recipes using Baxters products. The website also hosts an online shop where you can choose from a selection of Christmas hampers.

This new push of the company also includes online advertising and PR activity. Marketing Director for Baxters, Yvonne Adam said: “We will be investing heavily in the brand over the next 3 years. This new TV ad is just the start of an exciting new marketing campaign for the business.”

Rivals Heinz have also recently made strong pushes in social media which includes a campaign where customers can choose to personalise a soup can with names and get well messages.

Special K is known for their bright red logo and use red in many of their adverts, red dress anyone? So it’s no surprise that they are launching a bespoke red nail polish in a diamante-studded bottle with Nails Inc. which can be won by lucky Special K consumers.

There will be one bottle won every day for twelve weeks with 100 of them available. Not only that there will be ten million packs of special K which will include a £5 voucher towards a Nails Inc. manicure.

Kellogg’s Special K is currently running an on-going fashion campaign; hence the tie up with Nails Inc. and both are also running a sub-campaign with Asda which offering a specially designed limited edition ink box and pink nail polish. This will form part of Asda’s Tickled Pink activity in support of charities Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Campaign.

Special K has also joined forces with designer Ted Baker in the past to create a Special k red dress and handbag.

Nails Inc & Special K

This isn’t the first time Nails Inc. have joined forces with other companies to produce limited edition nail colours such as Diet Coke and Cadbury’s.

We all love reminiscing about food we ate when we were younger, even those early McDonalds meals you may cherish.  So it seems no surprise that McDonalds is looking to the past when creating new burgers.

 They plan to launch their 1955 “no-nonsense” premium burger in the UK soon, the burger is named after the year the fast-food chain was founded and is reminiscent of the style of burger they launched the company with.

It looks like the new burger will be available in the next couple of weeks and those wishing to sample this new delight will find a beef burger served in a premium bun, with lettuce, grilled onion, tomato, bacon ketchup and smoky barbecue sauce.

At first the burger will be sold as part of a special promotion in addition to their usual menu however if it is successful then McDonalds may add it to their menu permanently.  It has already been a big hit in European markets, including Spain and Germany.

The new burger is expected to be accompanied by a campaign which has been created by Leo Burnett that pays tribute to the brand’s beginnings.

Over the summer McDonald’s branched out into an experiential marketing campaign to support the launch of its sweet chilli crispy chicken wraps which have also been quite popular.