In what has been described as one of the quickest U-turns in marketing history [see The Sydling St Nicholas Sun, Monday 6th September “One of the quickest U-turns in marketing history”] the Threadbone Corporation has removed all of it recently rebranded Uncle Brian’s products from supermarket shelves and has begun replacing them with re-rebranded packaging which reverts, industry insiders believe, to the original Brian’s Original brand.
Only last week, the owners of Brian's Original, Threadbone Heavy Chemicals, had relaunched its original Brian’s Original as Uncle Brian’s - a decision originally designed to update its original image and replace it with something more homespun and original. It was originally thought that the rebrand would serve to reconnect the mass product, in the public mind, to its original origins. Brian's Original began life as a food staple for ordinary folk produced by the Dorset Utility Food Co-operative - originally a community based provender manufacturer and distributor inspired by and named for the dietary revolution begun originally by the then 6-year-old Professor Brian Thrupiece, who was in the footslopes of the research mountain which would turn ordinary fluff into a dietry staple. Though, originally, the Professor had no commercial connection to the original Company, the purchase of all Brian's Original products [together with all associated image rights and original branding] by the Threadbone Corporation in 2002 established a family link which Corporation executives were originally keen to exploit.
Today's unexpected return to the original Brian’s Original packaging was hailed as a triumph for common sense and follows protests - originally from Distinction Rebellion activists and later “ordinary shoppers” - who branded the original decision to drop Brian's Original and replace it with Uncle Brian's as "racist, neo-colonial, fascist and a tad insensitive" adding that it was the work of "a bunch of white supremacists bent on recreating through offensive imagery a marketing empire reminiscent of an era we would all prefer to forget or rather remember frequently as a stick with which to beat anyone with the temerity to have been born before 1966".
One of the earliest - dare we say "original" - fast foods, Brian's Original, revolutionised the housewife's attitude to kitchen slavery, leaving the little woman with more time to worry about her appearance and readying herself for her husband's return from the office. Even in its original, pre microwave, form, Brian's Original was famously described as "instant rice", though in this instance, "instant" meant a ten-minute-boil-in-the-bag kitchen-based experience. Ten minutes is, of course, a long time in the kitchen these days as well as in marketing circles - roughly the "envelope" required to brand, re-brand and re-rebrand any well-known household product.
Comments