JKR

Here are three snapshots from this week’s press which talk about the relationship between branding and the bottom line. Firstly, JTI are running advertising lobbying for cigarette packaging not to be debranded. One reason not to, they say, is that debranded packs are easier to counterfeit, with implications for the Revenue & Customs. Clearly it’s the potential loss of brand value which is at stake for cigarette manufacturers…

Secondly, these gold souvenir coins for the Olympics are being snapped up by Chinese tourists at a face value of £5,000 but back home are selling for triple this. It’s not the value of the gold, it’s the value of the logo…

Thirdly, Aldi are offering products ‘like brands, but cheaper’. With the average family reported to need £37,000 income just to be ‘regular members of society’ many working families are facing a slide into poverty. So, cheap is good, although one might argue folk don’t want cheap brands, they want good brands cheap…

What’s the connection in these three stories? I guess that all offer proof of the financial power of good design, or at least it’s ability to transcend logical price driven behaviour altogether. Nothing new in this, but all evidence that when the bottom line gets scrutinised, perhaps design spending can be seen as a source of value rather than cost.

Quoted in The Times about the coins, The Royal Mint said that it did not “offer its commemorative products to customers on the basis of investment, but instead encourages coins as emotional currency; as heirlooms that stand the test of time.”

Design as ‘emotional currency’ – that says it all.