New innovation launch for Pieminister: Handy Pies

Whoop! Here’s another amazing *new* innovation from our pie-fectly formed friends at Pieminister and lovely to have played a small part in developing the idea and getting them to market.

It’s time to dump the lunchtime soggy sandwich, sad slice or joyless wrap and feast on these handily handheld, deep filled, and seriously delicious Handy Pies.

There are four delicious flavours including a veggie and vegan option and they’re piefect to eat hot or cold.

Available in Ocado right now, Tesco to come very soon!

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Links:

Pieminister webpage

Pieminister insta

 

Crow Chronicle – unlocking the power of great plans

Ah, Crow Friends, please find attached for your delight and cawsome delectation this Spring’s Crow Chronicle, which this season is mostly focusing on plans and planning. Now, yes, here at Crow we are a brand building business, but creating great plans and much bigger than that. Whether it’s the plan for the whole business; a BU; a function or a brand portfolio or range, the power of a compelling plan, and the process that gets you there is often under-appreciated.

A great planning process aligns and unites the whole business. A great process not only delivers a plan that everyone then works to, but also drives engagement because of the confidence it creates.

A great plan focuses minds. Too often plans are flabby, unfocused and don’t talk to the key issues at play. The Chronicle offers a few tips and thought-starters for how to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Us Crows are absolute converts to the power of a great plan to drive a business positively forward. It takes effort, commitment, guts and no end of cat-herding, but get it right, and the domino effect you can create in the business will repay that investment in time and energy thrice over*

Enjoy the read!

Link here: Crow Chronicle on Planning

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*Yes, Crow said ‘thrice’ there. It’s a word that is not used often enough. Like ‘nuptials’, ‘egregious’, or ‘snollygoster’

New innovation launch for Florette: Gourmet Slaws

We loved working with the green-fingered team at Florette UK&I on the idea generation and concept development for the new Gourmet Slaw range, launching today in Sainsbury’s, and next month in Tesco, Booths (and more to follow).

The insight revealed a simple unmet need: people like coleslaw but get frustrated that too often, they’re pretty bland and often slathered in cheap mock-mayonnaise.

Not these: three flavours; fresh ingredients… ready to make or complete any meal, from a light lunch to a tasty dinner.  So cawsome, they’re slawsome!
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If you’re looking to develop new products so good they should be against the s-law, get in touch!

Innovation Success for Pieminister

Oh, it was so cawsome to hear the Piefect news about Pieminister’s – now *award winning* – Souk Chouk chicken and harissa filo pie in the British Pie Awards 2024! (Yes, very delightfully, there is such a thing). It’s always great to see the fruits of the team’s efforts do well, and in this case great to have been part of the  ‘filled-right-to-the-brim’ team at Pieminister that conceived and brought this beaut to market!
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Honestly, if you haven’t tried one yet they’re in Waitrose & Partners, Tesco and Ocado Retail Ltd – very much a case of winner, winner, filo pie dinner. Or lunch.
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Looking to build your innovation pipeline? Call Crow!

Not All Insights Are Created Equal

Debate and opinion on insights in marketing orientates around three topics. One, whether a business or brand is market-orientated at all, and how it becomes it. Two, how to gather insights. And three, debates about whether ‘insights’ are actually ‘insights’ at all or merely ‘data’, ‘observations’ or ‘truisms’ (and therefore somehow of less value). Enough indeed, for a Chapter each in the not-yet-started-or-frankly-needed, Crow Marketing Text Book.

What isn’t discussed is the utility of your insights. This tends to be assumed, but it would be incorrect to do so. A suite of insights that have been developed or identified for the brand are exploitable in different ways and in different degrees. In effect, insights are not created equal – deciding which to use and leverage is the one of the critical transition points between strategy and action.

Start with the brand positioning: if leveraging the insight creates dissonance with the task of refreshing or reinforcing what the brand stands for, then stop – you’re about to waste effort and resource.

Next, consider whether the insight is emergent – too often, it’s easy to be beguiled by a trend that seems exciting and new, but in fact isn’t scalable – at least not yet. Here, have a watching brief and bide your time.

Conversely, watch for being late to the party, when the words “we have to…” are being used around the business. You may have identified an insight whose time is passing and is beginning to recede. The risk here is that you spend resource on something that isn’t ownable and so doesn’t benefit the brand long term.

Discussing choosing between insights may seem counter-intuitive… after all, there’s an almost unstated assumption that insights are semi-mystical entities only capable of being found when you’re in the bath or when an apple drops on your head – neither of which are particularly likely to happen on a Teams call (at least not with the cameras on). And it isn’t true. Insights can be built and developed through being observant, curious, challenging and testing.

That’s when the real challenge emerges in insight: which will best help me grow my brand?

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success. For a different take on insights: david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1283 295100; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. Copyright 2024

Not thinking about innovation? You should be.
In the last year the number of innovation projects we help our clients with at The Crow Flies has stepped up. At first we thought it just a blip, but Helen Edward‘s article in Marketing Week underlines why, when times are tough, you need to have real clarity of focus on what’s important in your marketing mix – and innovation is right up there. As she says in the piece:
“Consumers love brands that don’t stand still. Think Apple, Red Bull, Spotify, Zara, L’Oréal. So, commit. Make 2024 the year you innovate. And by year’s end, you might find that you have not only better ridden out this bleak backdrop of economic and societal gloom, but perhaps, in some small way, actually done something to change it”.
If you’re looking for an innovation partner to build your brand’s pipeline, or need to start from scratch with the fundamentals – we can help.
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caw@thecrowflies.co.uk | +44 (0) 1283 295100
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Link to Helen’s article is also here.
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Contenders READY! Brand Builders READY!

Sometimes my heart sinks when a Linked In post begins with something like ’10 Things Marketeers Can Learn From …’ BUT there are times when a cultural moment is instructive for brands – and such a moment happened with the rebirth of Gladiators,  a show that finished on ITV in 2000 – almost a quarter of a century ago – was one such moment.

Whoever decided the time was right to bring the programme back was not astute because they spotted the opportunity.  They weren’t astute because they forecasted the ratings success. They weren’t even astute because they believed it could be programme to bring multiple generations together.

No, what was really astute is that they didn’t fiddle with it.

It was striking how little the programme had changed in fact. Sure, no more Ulrika and the Fash. And there was a little more Premiership Refereeing than the original. But honestly, beyond that, not much.

And in that, there are some lessons.

What made your brand famous was probably done by your predecessors. 
Creating something new is beguiling. Feeling you’ve made ‘your mark’ on a brand warms the ego.
But the real strength in great brand building is admitting that you are just one leg in an on-going relay. You accept the baton, and your job is to run your leg, pull ahead a touch more, and pass the baton on, securely, to the next incumbent.  It took real bravery to leave Gladiators alone.

Brands areas much about a consistent experience as they are a consistent message.
Great brands are multi-dimensional and (often) multi-sensorial – they live both in the real world and as a set of mental associations too. After a 24 year hiatus, it would have been easier to keep the name but change the ‘offer’ and experience of Gladiators. Again though, (as far as I could tell) the format of the programme, the challenges – all the same.  The skimpy lycra – the same.  The music – the same. The catchphrases – ah, let’s get to that.

Consistent signs, symbols and semiotics
I bet Mark Clattenburg was wishing he could have shouted at Premier League players like can on the programme – and as far getting his dentures around his one important line – spot on. ‘Contenders, ready? Gladiators, ready?’ – and for a large swathe of the 7m viewing audience, a mental gateway is opened up and a smile spreads across their face. Consistency of touchpoints – the small number of distinctive assets – have been retained too.

This isn’t to say brands can’t and shouldn’t change. Every brand needs to get the balance right between their hard won familiarity and the freshness needed to keep people coming for more. Too often though, the freshness dominates and the core withers. Gladiators showed us how it should be done.

Brand builders….ready!

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1283 295100; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2024

 

Festive Brand Mashups

It’s time to have a go at this year’s Festive #Brand #Mashups Crow Friends. It’s very simple, identify the brand from mashing together the pictures. Words are separated by a line.

This year, the answers are all best selling UK toys at Christmas from the early 1990s up towards the present day.  Happy brandmashing!

Xmas Mashups 2023

Answers are published at 3pm on 25.12.2023.
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