HMT Senior Partner, Sam Waterfall at Tetra Pak's vast Anuga Exhibition Display in Cologne Germany in March 2012

From 27 – 29 March I was at Anuga Food Tec 2012 together with the great and the good of the Food Production Industry.

If you’ve never been to Anuga it is the International Trade Fair for Food & Drink Technology. What does that mean? Well, in simple language, it’s the machines that make, chop, blend, ferment, process and pack the foods and beverages that you and I consume everyday.

The Healthy Marketing Team were fully involved. I arrived on the [..]

Starbucks Logo History - courtesy of www.retailbiz.com.au

I’ve been a fan of Starbucks since 1996 – when a friend of mine returned from Vancouver, raving about the wonders of coffee in a way that had never been heard of previously the UK. Add to that my love for the passion in Howard Shultz’s Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
(to this day one of the best business books I’ve ever read) and you could say I’m a long-term follower of the Starbucks evolution.

The Trend for Logo Simplification

Changing your logo when you are a major brand is a big deal. Companies invest hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars with branding and identity agencies to get it right. In recent years many of the major players have been removing the words from their logo. Nike is now just the swoosh. MTV finally removed ‘Music Television’ (let’s face it, it’s not been that for years). And more recently (January 5, 2011) The Starbucks Coffee Co. removed all of its words to become simply the Twin-Tailed Siren. [..]

Sam Waterfall - Keynote Speaker at the World Food Technology & Innovation Forum in Dublin, March 2012.

I was in Ireland this week. I’d been invited back to speak for the third time at the prestigious World Food Technology & Innovation Forum. This was the 10th annual event and it moved from 2011 in Brussels for this year’s event in Dublin, Ireland.

My message I delivered at my keynote presentation was a simple one: Innovation is fantastic, but make sure you have a brand to deliver your message to consumers.

With so many pulls on consumers limited attention they have no time for confusing brands. The best brands stand for one thing and one thing only. In fact, it’s true to say that [..]