Budget-conscious advertising
Branding Extra celebrates the ten-year success story of M-Budget with a major campaign.
Branding Exxtra is celebrating M-Budget's ten-year success story with a major campaign. "Better a loaf of bread than cutting the advertising budget" seems to be the motto at M-Budget. After the young cult brand already appeared on billboards throughout Switzerland in January, the Swiss discount original is doubling down this fall. M-Budget is launching a new, offensive poster and print campaign. Exxtra Kommunikation has designed a whole series of new subjects in the usual bold M-Budget style. On the one hand, these draw attention to further new products in the range. At the same time, the advertising budget is cleverly used to confidently emphasize the cult character of the graphically refreshing brand, detached from individual products.
The Migros brand M-Budget can now look back on a ten-year success story. In 1996, after an employee had a flash of inspiration while on vacation in Australia, it came onto the market with the first discount items in a green and white low-cost design, apparently fulfilling the needs of an entire population. The products sold well not only among people with modest incomes or large families, but also among middle to higher earners. "This is probably due not only to low prices and good quality, but also to successful marketing and advertising strategies," believes Beat Mühlemann, Head of Marketing Communications at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Zurich.
According to the large-scale Brand Asset Valuator image study, M-Budget is now the strongest Migros brand, stands for best value for money and is perceived as an innovative cult brand.
The advertising agency responsible, Exxtra Kommunikation, "did not always focus on pleasing", according to CD Dieter Hofmann. Instead, the brand's virtues were more important: cheap, pragmatic, simple, clever and Swiss.
In doing so, the creatives have occasionally accepted the fact that some people have felt offended - for example in the last campaign with the subject "Now you can change your underpants more often than a woman". Such provocations are part of the process and contribute to the brand's cult character.
Migros is using the same style, with a pinch of tongue-in-cheek, to draw attention to some of its 70 new M-Budget products this fall. A total of six subjects, each reduced to one product and an integrated headline, will adorn billboards and selected newspaper pages in September. Statements such as "Macht blitz, aber nicht blank", "Toast für ein Butterbrot" on the toast and "Lieber ein Brot als die Ferien streichen" are certainly further building blocks for the iconic image of the M-Budget brand.
Andreas Panzeri
The Migros brand M-Budget can now look back on a ten-year success story. In 1996, after an employee had a flash of inspiration while on vacation in Australia, it came onto the market with the first discount items in a green and white low-cost design, apparently fulfilling the needs of an entire population. The products sold well not only among people with modest incomes or large families, but also among middle to higher earners. "This is probably due not only to low prices and good quality, but also to successful marketing and advertising strategies," believes Beat Mühlemann, Head of Marketing Communications at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Zurich.
According to the large-scale Brand Asset Valuator image study, M-Budget is now the strongest Migros brand, stands for best value for money and is perceived as an innovative cult brand.
The advertising agency responsible, Exxtra Kommunikation, "did not always focus on pleasing", according to CD Dieter Hofmann. Instead, the brand's virtues were more important: cheap, pragmatic, simple, clever and Swiss.
In doing so, the creatives have occasionally accepted the fact that some people have felt offended - for example in the last campaign with the subject "Now you can change your underpants more often than a woman". Such provocations are part of the process and contribute to the brand's cult character.
Migros is using the same style, with a pinch of tongue-in-cheek, to draw attention to some of its 70 new M-Budget products this fall. A total of six subjects, each reduced to one product and an integrated headline, will adorn billboards and selected newspaper pages in September. Statements such as "Macht blitz, aber nicht blank", "Toast für ein Butterbrot" on the toast and "Lieber ein Brot als die Ferien streichen" are certainly further building blocks for the iconic image of the M-Budget brand.
Andreas Panzeri
