Which came first? While you’re pondering that one, here’s another conundrum – which comes first, the brand or the product?

This dilemma was neatly demonstrated in the recent final of The Apprentice. Our local girl Yasmina had to outsmart challenger Kate by creating a new brand of chocolates. And she succeeded in winning with a box of inedible chocs she branded “Electric”, beating Kate’s “Choc Amour” box of delicious confectionery. Why? Because Kate started with the product, and was then forced to charge a fortune for her box to cover her costs of the expensive ingredients, thus pricing it out of the mass market. Yasmina started with the market and worked backwards, fixing her low price first, and selecting the ingredients to suit. Which error would be easier to fix in reality? The recipe of the chocolates, of course.

You could argue they both succeeded in creating new brands on paper. It’s just that one would be doomed to failure from the start. Do you agree? Oh, and apparently the egg came first.

Please leave a comment to give us your opinion.

Woolworths is dead, long live Woolworths. Here’s a great example of how bricks and mortar, or should that be bricks n’ mortar, is not part n’ parcel (okay, I’ll stop that now) of a brand. The new owners of the brand, Shop Direct, asked people what it was they loved about Woolies. The answers included Ladybird children’s clothes and Pick n’ Mix sweets. And so the brand was sharpened and brought to the online marketplace with lower overheads.

Of course, this could have happened years ago in parallel with the high street operation. If the previous owners had done this they would have had options, as other retailers have who did. Of course there’s no guarantee they would have got it right. So perhaps the best thing for the brand was to change hands and benefit from an injection of new ideas and expertise.

What do you think about Woolies brand? Leave a comment.