Is Woolworths rebrand a failure to launch?

Two weeks after Australian supermarket giant Woolworths launched a fresh new look, the old logo is still being prominently featured in both advertising and the launch of its new credit card.

One of the best ways to kill the momentum of a rebrand is to execute poorly and hesitantly - and Woolworths seems to be on a similar track.

At launch Woolworths promised that the rebrand would take place slowly and steadily and that only a small number of stores would be rebranded with the new look and the rest would come on stream as they joined a refurbishment program or new stores were opened.

However, since the launch Woolworths seems to be exhibiting all the hallmarks of poor brand management.

On August 22, Woolworths announced the launch of a general all purpose, all singing and dancing credit card that can be used for purchases both within and outside Woolworths outlets and at group stores such as Dick Smith, Dan Murphys and Big W.

While a joint venture with global banking group HSBC and Mastercard, the Everyday Moneycard proudly carries the Mastercard mark but also the OLD Woolworths logo as does the Woolworths website, where you sign up for the card and the in-store and other advertising for the card.

And no one seems to have told Woolworths' advertising and media agencies. A similar story was repeated in newspaper and television advertising - the old logo continues to blaze in full colour.

None of this seems to make sense when in the same week Woolworths shrugged off the ACCC report into supermarket competition and announced the fresh new look would, as its head of marketing Luke Dunkerley is quoted as saying, "be instantly recognisable as Woolworths and be associated with the word fresh within a short time".

Here at DIFFUSION we wonder what Woolworths thinks is a "short time" and whether perhaps the flurry of announcements were designed to draw interest away from some of the more adverse findings in ACCC's supermarket competition report released on August 5.

More importantly, it demonstrates that large scale rebranding projects such as this are critical to Woolworths' long term strategy and require far more than a marketing department's control. A concentrated and well executed timetable, that is both realistic and cost effective, would forestall the impression that this is a hamfisted exercise. We wondering whether Woolworths' CEO Michael Luscombe isn't about to repeat some of the disasters from competitor Coles' rebranding efforts, which resulted in successive profit write downs from the botched Bi-Lo merger and John Fletcher's downfall.

Woolworths unpeels its new logo and kills off the Safeway brand.

Australia's largest supermarket retailer Woolworths has unveiled what the company describes as a "fresh new look" for its 780 stores, a harmonisation for the parent brand and the closure of the Safeway brand in Australia.

The new logo and word mark revamp, by Sydney based design agency Hulsbosch, came after a two way pitch against one of the doyens of Australian graphic design, Ken Cato.

It's the first visual makeover for Woolworths' stores in 21 years after it introduced the slogan “The Fresh Food People”.

While the logo has been designed to reflect what the compay calls "its strong commitment to fresh food, convenience and value for customers", customers won't be seeing the new mark on stores in most stores with a staged rollout planned only for those that have recently been refurbished.

The first store destined to carry the new branding is the company's Mona Vale store in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with a selection of other stores to be rebranded over the coming months.

More controversially customers of the Woolworths' Safeway stores in Victoria are going to see the loss of their much loved brand as Woolworths' completely rebadges all 189 stores. Woolworths has owned the brand since 1985, prior to this it had been operating in three Australian states since 1962.

The parent brand mark now looks closer to the US Woolworth's logo, a brand that closed in 1997.

Woolworths' management have gone in early to fend off criticism of the new mark by describing the design as symbolising several aspects of the Woolworths brand including the use of an abstract leaf symbol to represent fresh food, a connection to one of the Woolworths logos of the 1970s and the idea that it somehow represents a person with their arms up in the are - meaning that Woolworths focuses in on its customers.

While we think the old mark needed a freshening up, we're struggling to see how it is a leaf symbol and that it somehow represents a person. It's more closely aligned to a symbolic apple peel and to the 70s double chevron.

According to a Food Week interview with design head Hans Hulsbosch, the logo was benchmarked overseas and there was extensive consultation with both Woolworths' staff and senior management.

Hulsbosch said the logo was then tested in focus groups, though the size and scale of the testing is unknown.

“The reaction from those groups across a wide range of demographics and regions was so positive it confirmed our belief that we had found the right solution for the retailer. The test showed that the new identity successfully communicates positive values to customers," he said.

Despite the announcement, Woolworths' website was still sporting brand guidelines for both the old retail and company logos, a seemingly significant oversight in brand implementation. And Hulsbosch Communications media link to the new brand was also empty.

The logo announcement comes on the back of rival Coles' recent brand harmonisation and new nationalism and heritage tagline "Proudly Australian since 1914" unveiled during Olympics' television advertising.

Woolworths is Australia's leading supermarket retailer with revenues of $45 billion and is ranked 23rd among the world's leading supermarket brands. It was recently subject to an Australian Competition Commission investigation into supermarket dominance in Australia.