5 Big Brand Decisions UK 2018

5
BIG
BRAND
DECISIONS
UK 2018
LIVING PROOF

Big Brand Decisions UK 2018 2
Living Proof gives brands new energy for growth
We build ideas that take root in culture and
bear fruit in consumers’ everyday lives
We flex our full-service insight, strategy and
innovation capabilities to fit the brief
Because it's not about what we do,
it's about what needs to be done
“Be More You” // “Be More This”1
2
3
4
5
“Make It Easier” // “Make It Better”
“Go Big” // “Go Small”
“Make It Magic” // “Keep It Real”
“Create Consumers”// “Create Culture”

Big Brand Decisions UK 2018
Every new year presents a brave new world
3

Every new year demands brave new decisions
4

We review the ideas that have taken root in the UK in 2017,
and we preview the ideas that are set to shoot in the UK in 2018
5

Where’s the opportunity for brands?
Every trend, like energy, has an equal and opposite force
Brands can choose to follow or buck any trend
So anything can be true and anything can be false – for your brand
One thing we know for sure is that the choice is yours
Living Proof is here to help you define the decision to be made,
and make the best choice for your brand and your consumer in 2018
6

SO WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
IN THE UK IN 2017?

Consumer behaviours became increasingly divergent and inconsistent, as everyday
lifestyles balanced across ever greater extremes
8

Consumers began to explore new behaviours, and new conceptions of pleasure, that fit
better with their personal priorities and desired identity
• 21% of the population is now teetotal,
with 16-24yo the least likely to drink
• 56% of packaged food and soft drinks
in the UK are labelled vegetarian
• 44% of Brits are willing or already
committed to cutting down on meat
Mintel; UK Office for National Statistics
9

Other consumers began to explore other new behaviours, and other new conceptions of
pleasure, that fit better with their personal priorities and desired identity
• Only 9% of the population claim not to
eat red meat or poultry
• The burger bar market worth over £3.3B,
up 22% from £2.7B in 2011
• Pizza delivery up 5.7% YoY since 2013
Mintel, Ibisworld
10

• Discounters grew faster than online in 2017, a
reverse on 2016
• Aldi’s Specially Selected line is the UK’s fastest
growing premium own-label brand with annual
sales up 25%
• Over Christmas, private-label sales at the
supermarkets grew at nearly three times the
rate of the overall grocery market
Nielsen Homescan Total FMCG
Kantar Worldpanel
Consumers shopped differently, re-evaluating notions of ‘value’ and ‘added value’

Tastes changed, with appetite for intense, natural experiences continuing to grow
• Consumers are most likely to associate craft
drinks with having a unique flavour, at 47%.
• Matcha tea annual set to grow at 9.6% for
next 5 years
• In 2016, hot spicy sauces grew 7.2% while all
others declined; in 2017, mayo’s range of
flavours took it past ketchup as the UK’s
favourite condiment
Mintel, marketresearchfuture, Kantarworldpanel
12

Aesthetics mattered, with packaging and presentation driving purchase
• 65% of the population, and 80% of
millennials, have purchased a
product for its pack form or visual
design
• 80 percent of the 800 million
monthly Instagram users connect
to a business voluntarily
Nielsen Return On Innovation Report 2017, Instagram
2017
13

Consumers respond to how brands impact culture – for better and for worse
• Consumers see how brands contribute to or
erode the world they want to live in
• At their best, brands such as Netflix create
cultural behaviours that consumers want to
buy into
• At their worst, brands can be accused of
cultural tone-deafness and corporate
malfeasance
Yougov, 2017
14

Consumers are ever-more motivated to buy from smaller businesses,
who have been stealing share of top new brand launches for 4 straight years
Top 100 New Brands By Trading Company Size
Nielsen Return On Innovation Europe 2017
15

However, established brands still find themselves in a position to drive the change they
seek
Top 10 Fastest-growing UK grocery products of 2017
1. Budweiser £49.2m growth
2. Monster £31.3m
3. Avocados £29.8m
4. Barefoot wine £28.5m
5. Coca-Cola £27.7m
6. Hovis £25.4m
7. Raspberries £23.0m
8. Alpro £22.3m
9. Plaza Centro Prosecco £21.6m
10. Corona £21.5m
Nielsen 2018
16

SO WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST
BRAND DECISIONS WE FACE IN 2018?

External forces are driving change that
cannot be resisted
Some brands will have change imposed
upon them
Others brands will seize the opportunity to
lead change
18

Divergent consumer behaviour creates
opportunities for the ambitious
19

The dominant dynamics are playing out as
tensions that brands can productively
address in 2018
20

“Be More You” // “Be More This”
1
2
3
4
5
“Create Consumers” // “Create Culture”
21

“Be More You”
Vs
“Be More This”
1
22

“Be More You” vs “Be More This”
• This is about how brands today seek to contribute to their consumers’ sense of self and idealised identity
• Consumers are demanding ever-greater intimacy and generosity from their chosen brands
• The challenge for brands is striking the balance between being single-minded and being open-minded

“Be More You”
“Be More This”
v.
24

“Be More You”
In a nutshell
Some brands prioritise their target
consumer’s individuality over a
specific brand benefit.
Benefits Of The Approach
This is a supportive, encouraging,
open-minded brand voice that
connects positively with a
journeying, uncertain, fiercely
individualistic consumer –
typically Millennial or younger
Axe
Find Your Magic
In This Case
Axe, Britain’s fastest growing global brand
in 2017, shifted its sex-orientated
positioning away from ’Spray More Get
More’ to better fit with its consumer and a
culture that has more respect for women
BrandFinance 2017
25

“Be More This”
In a nutshell
Other brands choose to
challenge their target
consumer by prescribing who
they should be
Having focus on a defined,
singular attribute can feel
more assertive, more ownable,
and easier to communicate
Heineken
Open Your World
In This Case
Heineken exhorts consumers to change and
open up – reflecting the brand’s Dutch
liberalism and the bonding that beer
enables
26

“
The decision for brands today is whether their target
consumer is more motivated by being offered a
defined, aspirational identity - or whether their target
consumer responds better to less prescriptive ideas.
”
“Be More You” vs “Be More This”
27

“Make It Easier”
Vs
“Make It Better”
2
28

“Make It Easier” vs “Make It Better”
• This is about how brands today meet potentially conflicting consumer desires for simplicity and sophistication
• The very human desire for progress drives consumers to appreciate greater sophistication: ideas that signify
better-ness; icons of achievement; status symbols. The very human desire for comfort drives consumers to
appreciate the simple things in life, and those things in life that have been made simple.
• The challenge for brands is to truly understand their optimised purpose in consumers’ everyday lives – at core,
whether you make things easier or make things better

Vs.
30

In a nutshell
Some brands believe in simplicity
and accessibility – maximising
consumers’ lives by facilitating
consumers’ lives
In these hectic and unstable times,
the value of simplicity and reliability
is great: it gives consumers a sense
of being in control and frees them
up to focus on what matters
Barefoot Wines
In This Case
Barefoot, up £28.5M in the UK in 2017, has
disrupted an esoteric category by making
it gloriously approachable, navigable and
enjoyable for its target consumer
Nielsen 2017
31

In a nutshell
Other brands offer bigger and
better – challenging conventions,
demanding more involvement on
the promise of greater reward
Challenger brands don’t only
follow – they can lead from the
front by creating opportunities in
complacent or crowded
categories
Fever Tree
In This Case
Fever Tree, growing 75% in 2017, is a clean
expression of the quest for better, seizing
upon a stagnant category to stake out a
new superiority and claim it for itself
Financial Times
32

“
The decision for brands today is whether the greater
opportunity lies in offering consumers new paths into the
category as it stands, or in creating and capturing new
value in the category.
”
“Make It Easier” vs “Make It Better”
33

“Go Big”
Vs
“Go Small”
3
34

“Go Big” vs “Go Small”
• This is about how brands today can express their essence in ways that surprise and delight
• The expression of a brand idea can be maximised two key ways: either by turning up the volume of the idea,
or by concentrating the idea to its core
• At a time when external forces – sugar tax, cost of ingredients, health trends, disposable income – are driving
changes to product and packaging, brands have the opportunity to set the pace of change rather than
have it imposed

“Go Big”
“Go Small”
Vs.
36

“Go Big”
In a nutshell
Some brands amplify their ideas
simply through increasing scale –
prompting reappraisal and
earning new attention from their
target consumers
Going big tends to create a
brand experience characterised
by more generosity, freedom,
child-like joy
Warburtons
Giant Crumpet
In This Case
Warburtons Giant Crumpets were launched to
give consumers more of what they already
love. Achieving 17% penetration, it helped
Warburtons overcome a decline in wrapped
bakery to achieve 2.3% growth in 2017
Nielsen Return On Innovation 2017
37

“Go Small”
In a nutshell
Other brands have re-expressed
their core essence in smaller
products that better meet
consumers’ needs
Going small tends to create a
more exquisite, pure, intense
experience of the brand – and
be more permissible
McVitie’s
Digestive Thins
In This Case
McVitie’s Digestives Thins overcame years
of decline in Digestives, offering a health-
conscious consumer a smaller, lighter,
more delicate biscuit - with a projected
RSV of £12M in year one
The Grocer
38

“
The decision for brands today is how best to brief
innovation to respond to a changing environment, with
both maximisation and minimisation offering potential
solutions with very different brand implications.
”
“Go Big” vs “Go Small”
39

“Keep It Real”
Vs
“Make It Magic”
4
40

“Keep It Real” vs “Make It Magic”
• This is about how brands today balance real-life relevance with magical powers to transport and transform
• Consumers will always live in the everyday, but prefer some brands to affirm that everyday existence and
other brands to help them transcend their mundane realities.
• The challenge for brands is to ensure that the everyday feels aspirational, or that the aspirational feels
relevant to the everyday.

“Keep It Real”
“Make It Magic”
Vs.
42

“Keep It Real”
In a nutshell
Some brands unapologetically
acknowledge and embrace their
core functionality – and in so doing
respect those who buy into the brand
By lionising their consumer and their
product, without relying on smoke
and mirrors, brands can be
powerfully and positively rooted in
the consumer’s everyday with true
authenticity
In This Case
McDonald’s communicates with joyful
realism to connect with its core consumer,
giving itself true status by refusing to pretend
to be anything other that what it is – with UK
driving global growth of 5% in 2017
Interbrand
43

“Make It Magic”
In a nutshell
Other brands elevate far beyond
their core functionality and focus
entirely on the brand idea
By conceiving of the brand as an
idea rather than just a product,
consumers can be led to focus
on relevant positive emotions
rather than potentially negative
functionality
In This Case
Red Bull, a media company that sells an
energy drink, worth nearly £6B worldwide in
2017, gives their brand idea total freedom
from the original product attributes
RedBull.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/redbull
Red Bull
44

“
The decision for brands today is where to situate the
brand world, and their consumer and product within
that: to keep it real or to make it magic
”
“Keep It Real” vs “Make It Magic”
45

“Create Consumers”
Vs
“Create Culture”
5
46

“Create Consumers” vs “Create Culture”
• This is about how brands today approach brand-building – balancing consumer acquisition and cultural
iconicity
• One approach prioritises the individual consumer as the route to growing brand and business: solving their
problems, being physically and mentally available, and streamlining the journey from awareness to purchase
• The alternative approach prioritises culture as the route to growing brand and business: achieving iconicity,
being aspirational and dominant and impressive, creating a culture in which the brand is king

Create Culture
Vs.
48

In a nutshell
Some brands seek to serve the
needs of individual consumers
and prioritise this over cultural
iconicity
Brands can be closer and more
intimate to their consumer, who
in turn feel these brands meet
their unique needs better
In This Case
Adidas achieved 17% growth globally in
2017, thanks to its relevance to older,
multi-sport consumers attracted to
adidas’s strong fashion credentials
Interbrand
49

“Create Culture”
In a nutshell
Other brands seek to create a
culture in which their attributes
and capabilities are most valued,
asserting a ‘charismatic authority’
that teaches culture what to
believe and value
By creating rather than following
culture, brands can aim higher, by
writing the rules of the game that
they seek to win
In This Case
Nike’ achieved 8% growth globally in
2017, having hedged its bets on the
cultural importance of ’athletic
performance’ rather than ‘athletic style’
Interbrand
50

“
The decision for brands today is whether to invest their
resources in better meeting individual consumers’ needs or in
creating a cultural desire and appreciation for the brand idea
”
“Create Consumers” vs “Create Culture”
51

Living Proof gives brands new energy for growth
We build ideas that take root in culture and
bear fruit in consumers’ everyday lives
We flex our full-service insight, strategy and
innovation capabilities to fit the brief
Because it's not about what we do,
it's about what needs to be done
“Be More You” // “Be More This”1
2
3
4
5
“Create Consumers”// “Create Culture”

Oscar Runeland
Oscar@livingproofstrategy.com
Jamie Holtum
Jamie@livingproofstrategy.com

5 Big Brand Decisions UK 2018

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