A Huntermaster on that!

Anyone who is lucky enough to represent an established brand that has been on the market for a long time also has a problem: times are changing, business is going international. And the brand? There's nothing wrong with freshening up the appearance of your brand now and then - but without touching the core of the brand that has worked so well for so long.

But where does the brand core begin and where does it end? Is the claim an element of the brand's central value proposition, for example by encoding it? At Volkswagen, that is certainly the case. That's why the claim in America and Asia is called "Das Auto" and not "The car" or similar. How relevant to the brand essence are color and typography? Does Nivea work worse on a white background than on a blue one, Nivea Sans better than Metro? Not necessarily. And not necessarily not.

In most cases, the name of the product is clearly part of the brand essence. Therefore, it should not be touched if possible. In Italy, people eat or lick "children" and mean children's chocolate. That is a brand. That's why there was an outcry when Capri-Sun recently thought it had to rename its sugary orange drink from an aluminum bag to Capri-Sun. Because the company now does business internationally.

Interestingly, it wasn't the established branding agencies that cried out first (to get themselves in business); nor was it angry consumers who felt cheated out of yet another childhood memory. The first to react were representatives of other brands. First and foremost, Ritter Sport and beer brand Astra took aim at the beverage producer with witty posts: "What Capri-Sun can do, we can do for a long time!" posted Ritter Sport, combined with a picture of the "Knight Sport Orange" variety. And Astra asked "Is that how we make it right, Capri-Sun?", accompanied by a photo of a bottle of "Astra Urguy".

In the social networks, anger then turned into creativity; a number of suggestions for renaming, including adapted logos, made the rounds: Braun became Brown, Lufthansa became Airhansa, Jägermeister became Huntermaster. After all, schadenfreude is still the greatest joy - and there's nothing easier than joining in the sneering and critical chorus and ranting about bad brand management.

How would you bring a brand back into the conversation that just about everyone knows from their childhood, but which no longer really wants to fit in with today's conscious, sugar-free, vegan or at least vegetarian and whatnot diet? Well? Exactly! The re-branding could also be a brilliant move by Capri-Sun to get back on the scene and into the shopping bag. The adjutancy of the two big brands Ritter Sport and Astra certainly didn't hurt. And as the saying goes, "It doesn't matter, like people talk about you. It is important, that people talk about you." And Capri-Sun has definitely achieved that.

Whether calculated or not: it is not unlikely that one or the other will reach for Capri-Sun the next time they go shopping - simply to try out whether it is at least still so tastes as in the past. And because in memory a long forgotten sun has risen again.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor in Chief

f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch