NoMu’s man behind the brand Paul Raphaely tells us how all (BIG) change comes from crisis….
“Alright, now look, we know that we have authority issues.
This much we have made perfectly clear and pretty much also from Day One.
It’s part of our unique and subjectively interpreted charm.
And since the headline does say that there’s some crisis involved here, in this particular case, where we have been forced to make a fairly big change, we would like to present you with something very new, quite flexible, terribly acrobatic and altogether quite ballsy.
What have we done?
Well, we have changed SUGAR-FREE Hot Chocolate to SKINNY, obviously.
This little stunt is in direct retaliation (and as a rather large pout) to some fairly recent nanny-stating legislation changes.
These are the new laws regarding how everything now needs to be labeled. All these changes are supposedly to protect you all (apparently ‘helpless’) consumers.
Or of course, here you could also just as easily insert: ‘Kick start the economy by making sweeping, one-size-fits-all decisions to force brands and businesses throughout South Africa to spend budgets they don’t have, in the middle of a recession to make very expensive and distracting changes to their labeling, just like road signs.
But that’s just our opinion. For the rest you shall have to read on.
This is something worth spending a little more time on since these are all the things that we were told we could not call our NUMBER1-Selling Product AND the backbone of our business (so nothing crucial or anything, obviously).
Before we get into it though, here’s some suitable music to get you in the mood…
Yes, obviously, right? I couldn’t help myself.
Anyway, according to our new laws, you as the consumer are not allowed anything that is called ‘Sugar Free‘ or ‘Low-GI‘ or even ‘LITE‘ for that matter.
‘Vitamin Enriched‘ might force you to go blind apparently and ‘With Extra Calcium‘ might suddenly result in you being struck by a speeding abalone. Stranger things have happened you know. Just ask MacDonalds if you listen to their peculiar radio ads.
Anyway, the best way to counter the lunacy would obviously be to respond appropriately. What could be more appropriate than calling it ‘SKINNY‘ Hot Chocolate. Why not? You call for coffee that way anyway, right?
We all do.
This is almost ironic since, in actual fact we have also increased the grammage by 50g! If anything, this makes our little front-runner even more bosomy and gorgeous because even if this does make it moderately more expensive, you actually get a cheaper cup per serving. All quite clever.
(Kate approved the word ‘bosomy’ by the way)
So, brace yourselves for impact. In the next week you will begin to see this rather fetching new design direction start appearing on the shelves. In fact, if you look closely you might also notice that there is also not just a teeny bit of bold re-design happening too. But more on that later. Wouldn’t want to spoil the overall suprise would I?
‘Course not.
Then lastly, a few NEW features to look out for:
* The TIN is gone. No more importing air from very far away. These fully recyclable, composite cardboard cannisters are deliciously Zero-Carbon footprint and locally produced baby, all the way!
* Also, no more side-seam in the tin. This means no more irritating foil pouch to keep catching your spoon, sending Hot Chocolate powder poofing everywhere.
* There are all sorts of other new, little goodies hidden all over the cannister! QR Codes, bits of trivia and a special message woven into the front design, as a sort of mission statement. So, some bedtime reading there then.
In any event, there’s quite a lot going on suddenly. We thought you’d enjoy the heads-up as we go about picking yet another fight, well beyond our weight class. The most important for our incredible consumers is that you guys must know why we do these things.
‘Sugar-Free’ was fine but ‘Skinny’ is so much better so thanks CPA, actually.”
To read more of Paul’s blogs, check out NoMU’s site. Follow @NoMUChirps on Twitter for the low down on all things NoMU… and some fun.