In certain circles I am person of moderate fame. To some I am Tafadzwa Madzika the arts and entertainment journalist, to others Chairman the stand up comedian and to a few the "We made it to Friday" guy. I took my mom to Shoko Festival last year and during the night so many came to greet me that at one point my mother asked kuti "Kwakanaka here?"
Now why am I telling you this? It's just to show that I have an understand of branding, and hopefully that stops you from arguing with everything I have to say on this matter.
If you're an executive from Cairns reading this, you probably saw the headline and thought to yourself that the Spuds sales demanded a rebrand. Of which you would be wrong, they just needed you guys to put more flavour on the chips and wake up your marketing department - they are not present at all on social media.
Now if you don't know what I'm talking about, Cairns recently revamped the packaging of their Spuds potato chips. From striped khaki packet everyone had come to know and love, they switched colour themed packets that were different for every flavour. A generic design that mimics every other brand of potato chips. Ironic, given that the tagline of this rebrand is "Made to stand out."
Ignored was the fact that that khaki paper was iconic. An identitying marker like the Real Madrid white, the Chelsea blue, or CAPS United green. A part of the brand that can't be separated from it. It was rustic, and held the promise of something fresh, which is now swallowed by bright banner shouting that "I am nothing but over processed food."
Now while rebrands are not the end of the world, the problem is Zimbabwean brands don't consult the people (even with CAB3 they pretended to value our opinion). This is just like when Schweppes gave us "Diet Mazoe" or when they rebranded Shumba Maheu to Ades. Schweppes immediately had to bring back the old recipe (anoda Mazoe asina sugar ndiani?), and after losing 12% in sales Ades Maheu was rebranded back to Shumba Maheu.
It could possibly just be nostalgia or the new design might be genuinely be terrible, either way the khaki should be brought back. There's actually no need to change what works. It's just like Colcom's pork pies, they need more meat in the pie and not new wrapping. Don't even get me started about Minute Maid going from selling fruit juice to that thing pretending to be diluted Mazoe.
Anyways I hope you get the message, more smoked beef and spare rib in the packet, and back to khaki for the wrapping. As Zimbabweans we need change elsewhere, not in the wrapping of our Spuds.
Side note: If you guys need a social media manager I'm available and I can be paid in food