Congratulations to our friends at flynas for receiving further recognition as the Best Low Cost Airline in the Middle East at the International Paris Air Show.

Having earned three gold awards in 2014 for the launch of the brand, flynas has continued it’s success, taking home titles as Best Low Cost Airline in the Middle East each year since.

The Skytrax awards represent an international standard of quality and excellence, and are awarded according to votes and surveys conducted over a 10 month period across 41 key performance indicators in products and services.

“We have an unwavering commitment to improve our services and performance to achieve the maximum satisfaction from our guests. Having been awarded the Skytrax award shows the pioneering spirit of flynas, and reflects the advancement in Saudi aviation. We, in flynas, are proud of continuously achieving excellence, and always being present in the award scene despite being in a heavily-competitive environment. We are very delighted and we always strive for more success.” Mr. Bandar Almohanna, Group CEO of Nas holding

“These awards mean a great deal to us in the flynas family. It is the magnificent teamwork and care of our guests that is being recognized here today. The same teamwork that delivers great value fares and consistently high On Time Performance results”. Mr. Paul Byrne, CEO of flynas

The new flynas brand was created and developed – brand name, strategic platform and visual identity – by Aeron’s team in 2013 and along with our Saudi partners, Charisma, we have continued to support the brand since.

See the launch advert TVC as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1i3RLgTXQ

Context

Nifor are a strategic international marketing consultancy focused on helping ambitious companies realise their growth objectives in Europe and the Middle East.

Ambition

Established at the end of 2016, Nifor needed a strong brand identity to support their launch as a consulting partner that bridges high-level marketing services with regional insight to connect investment with commercially rewarding opportunities.

Action

Working closely with the Nifor team, we ran a competitive audit to establish their intended positioning in the market. Having assessed the strategic positioning opportunities, we made sure Nifor had a clear offer and proposition, so that we could develop a compelling visual and verbal identity.

Response

We developed a striking brand identity, to reinforce Nifor’s eye for marketing detail and providing them with an iconic device and communications system that can be applied across marketing communications and brand assets.

Sitting in the top trending stories last week were 19 Worst Selfie Fails Of All Time, which makes for pretty hilarious viewing if, unlike me, you are not sitting opposite your boss at work.

By definition a selfie is an image that one takes of oneself, typically with a Smartphone or a webcam and shared via social media. But what’s in a selfie – what’s the point?

Well Dr Apter, a psychology lecturer at Cambridge University, believes that we take selfies in search of self-definition; we take these pictures to help us figure out who we actually are. Selfies help us to accept our own internal experiences, thoughts and feelings in such a way that helps us to better understand how we interact with the world.

Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Hockney, Munch, Hopper, to name but a few, are all artists who have turned a canvas into a mirror.  Whilst they couldn’t publish their self-portraits on social media, these works were their own form of personal legacy – a form of “self-advertisement”.

But selfies are also about self-transformation.  Selfies that we publish show us how we want to be seen by others, meaning we take control of our own ‘brand image’ and portray the person we wish others to believe we are, be that sporty, funny, courageous…

What’s the outcome?  Selfies represent a moment in our lives, but are a veneer to perhaps misdirect others from understanding our deeper motivations, insecurities or self-doubt.

For example, were Bilbo Baggins to take a selfie on his journey to the Lonely Mountain, I’m pretty sure he would be smiling whilst in the far distance would lie a panorama of the unknown.  This image would portray to others a happy, go-lucky hobbit not fearing the adventure in which he was partaking.  Actually this is a far cry from the truth.  As unadventurous folk, hobbits would never elect to leave the Shire; Bilbo never wanted to leave Bag End and was pressurized by Gandalf and the dwarf brethren to do so.  He would much rather have stayed in the comfort of his home, smoking pipe-weed and avoiding any excitement whatsoever.

So next time you take a selfie perhaps you will ask yourself why.  On our never ending journey for self-definition and transformation, perhaps an introspective glance of what drives you to take that selfie will help you towards knowing yourself better and, in so doing, help you “to thine own self be true”.

By Emma Goodall

JAMES ROBINSON

Many people are by now familiar with Tuesday’s Twitter storm after a (probably now unemployed) member of Sainsbury’s Romford Road, Stratford team accidentally put up a poster meant for the staff room in a shop window. The poster was asking staff to encourage customers to spend more during every shopping trip in a concerted sales push towards the end of the year.

The offending poster created quite a stir as TV freelancer Chris Dodd tweeted the picture @ the Sainsbury’s Twitter account along with the caption: ‘Not sure this is supposed to be in your window…’ Cue articles in just about every morning newspaper going and the inevitable office water cooler conversations about that Sainsbury’s poster.

Whilst the Sainsbury’s brand will never scream its value message in the way that rivals Asda and Tesco do, this does somewhat seem to go against their most recent brand promise of ‘Live Well for Less’. Historically Sainsbury’s have opted to take a more subtle approach than their rival discounters in an effort to appeal customer emotions. However, whilst they might not necessarily make a noise about competing on price their current strap-line definitely implies that customers will be getting more for less and it is easy to see how loyal shoppers would be well within their rights to be angry after this picture was published online.

In a nutshell – Sainsbury’s appear to be promising something that they are not delivering.

Call me cynical but it does seriously make you wonder how many companies (especially in the food retail sector) actually intend to deliver on their brand promises.  With the amount of money companies spend on convincing us that their brand is superior/sexier/better value,  this sort of thing is often hard to judge at face value. In this case however, the speed with which people are prepared to jump on the anti-Sainsbury’s bandwagon after an incident like this is very telling.

Sainsbury’s were quick to dismiss the suggestion that it was deceiving customers by saying that the poster was merely ‘a bit of fun’. Whether or not this is the case, it was clearly not a well-thought out strategy, the damage is now done and Sainsbury’s are left clearing up mess in a fiercely competitive market place. The FT has now published an article that describes the UK Groceries market as being in a war-of-attrition-like state and that Sainsbury’s were expecting a decline in sales in the run up to Christmas following a 3% dip in sales in the second quarter.

What we absolutely loved was how quickly German rivals Lidl reacted to Sainsbury’s unfortunate mishap with this genius ad and a great hashtag in this morning’s metro.

In our new technological age everyone is armed with their own weapons of mass communication and there really is nowhere to hide. When a traditionally well-loved food giant like Sainsbury’s makes this kind of slip-up, people are all-too savvy and eager to grab their moment of glory by exposing a large corporation for all to see.

And of course, as with Lidl, competitors are always waiting in the wings ready to reinforce their own brand values and capitalise on such a situation in order to seize a slice of the market pie chart and educate people as to the benefits of their brand. The moral of the story – “Brands! Stick to your promises, be transparent and be careful”.

Beyond Feed. A new chapter for the regions leading animal feed business

Context

Agthia is a leading Abu Dhabi based food & beverage company.  And proud to be known for providing high quality, trusted, and
essential food and beverage products to customers and consumers alike across the UAE, GCC, Turkey and the wider Middle East.

Set up in 1978, Grand Mills was formed to help the UAE nation achieve food security.  Initially flour and silo based, animal feeds followed in 1981. Both activities were incorporated into Agthia when it was established in 2004.

Ambition

Agthia is justly proud of the Grand Mills name, and the reputation the business has grown, both for high quality healthy flours, foods and innovative, high quality, value for money animal feeds.

The ambition was to move away from a shared vision, to a company with a sharper, specialised focus on the industry issues and demands that matter to its customers most.

Action

Taking its place alongside Grand Mills, in 2014 the Grand Mills Feed business has been re-invented and revitalised as Agrivita.

The vision and brand proposition is to move ‘beyond feed’ to provide a committed and commercial service, offer wide ranging innovation, delivered through a team of experts and an evolving high performing and extensive product range.

Results

Our team helped Agthia develop a new name, a clear proposition, a rationalized product portfolio with clear price positioning, and a compelling visual identity system including a new corporate identity, enhanced product and packaging, brand environments and tools and applications to bring the brands to life across marketing and sales channels.

The brand launched in February 2014 with a launch to 500 industry professionals and customers to very positive reviews.

We have continued to support Agrivita, and in April 2017 advised and provided creative and strategic direction for the brand launch of a joint venture with Anderson Hay, Agrivita Marabe.

About Aeron

We are Aeron, a London brand design consultancy that specialises in business transformation, brand enviromental strategy and design. Our purpose is set on helping ambitious businesses thrive in today’s market place.

Based on fundamental insights, our London brand design consultancy is expert in helping organisations define their brand purpose; a clear, relevant, ownable and defendable territory – which delivers genuine value to customers.

With a reputation for linking brand strategy and innovative design with clear financial outcomes, our London branding agency combines intelligent data, imaginative insight with inspiring creativity and transformative digital technology to deliver enduring growth.

Ben brings significant account management experience working on celebrated international brands with firms including Brandhouse and Cowan Design.

His brand and implementation experience includes projects for clients such as Heinz (Soups), Britvic (Robinsons) and John Cotton in the UK; GlaxoSmithKline (Aquafresh) and Kellogg’s (Special K) globally, Mars (Cesar dog food, Maltesers & Galaxy) in Europe; Agthia and PeipsiCo in the Middle East; and Kellogg’s (Extra/Komplete) in Central America.

Ben is a University of Warwick Graduate in Law and Business, was brought up in Plymouth, in the West Country, and has travelled extensively throughout South America.