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MOVE THE GOALPOSTS
There are times when a brand will make such a radical change to its product that it forces all the others who are playing on the same pitch to pull their socks up and try a lot harder, or give up and go home. What customers thought was normal or accepted as the best they were going to get, suddenly looks outdated and meagre compared with the new stuff.
The idea In the 1970s, you were lucky if an ice cream shop offered more than three flavours: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. You could add a Cadbury’s Flake (a “99”) or monkey blood, a red topping with an unidentifiable fruit flavour. Maybe you would stumble across the occasional chocolate chip or rum ’n’ raisin. A very smart establishment might sell lemon and orange sorbets (sherbets in the US). Then came Baskin-Robbins. They were established in the US in 1945, so for Americans 31 flavours probably seemed normal, but to us in the UK it was if a spaceship had landed from another planet bringing previously unimagined variety. Naturally, they encountered the neo-sceptics who wondered why anyone needed so many different flavours, and what was wrong with vanilla anyway? Baskin-Robbins had moved the goalposts so far, they’d rewritten the rules of the game.
100 GREAT BRANDING IDEAS • 65
100 Great Branding Ideas 14dec.indd 65
12/14/11 11:14 AM
