Before & After: Anchor

"Anchor, the iconic New Zealand milk and dairy brand, has a fresh new look at the hands of brand design expert, Dow Design." OLD design above, see below for the new!

"'Our aim was to find a simple and powerful visualisation of freshness, to represent the modern dynamism of Anchor,' says Dow Design Creative Director, Donna McCort. 'We were inspired by the sun, because it helps grow the grass that feeds the cows, and it's a happy, universal, dynamic symbol. The Anchor sun is bold and strong but its hand-drawn feel gives it a warmth and humanity.'

In the wake of an increase in competition based purely on price, Dow Design wanted to reinvigorate the Anchor brand and its values, taking it from a commodity back to the trusted brand that generations of New Zealanders grew up with. To help achieve this emotive link, short stories that capture joyful moments of everyday life, reminiscent of the Anchor family ads, appear on the packaging.

Anchor’s Senior Brand Manager Anna Maginness explains, 'The new packaging encompasses our values, bringing freshness and warmth through lively suns and engaging stories. It introduces a more caring persona for Anchor, creating a fun and inspirational new identity for the brand to interact with the consumer. It has brought Anchor back to the kiwi brand everyone loves.'

The Anchor logo, long seen as a seal of quality and approval, has only changed slightly on the new packaging, now appearing at a slight angle. Another element that hasn’t changed is the variant colours; blue still representing original standard milk, light blue for ‘lite’ and green for ‘trim’.

Dow Design distinguished Anchor's enriched milks range by applying individual symbols  to represent their unique offering while matching the straight-forward, modern personality of the brand's sun symbol. Bottles of ‘calci+’ boast a sunflower; a flexed arm muscle appears on ‘mega’ and a ‘star’ on ‘super blue’ 

Anna Maginness says, 'Dow Design has successfully integrated pieces of brand equity across the range, getting the navigational cues spot on and creating better stand out for Anchor, whether its on a shelf or in a crate.'

Anchor’s new branding appears on bottles of fresh milk and cream now available in supermarkets, dairies and convenience stores nationwide. In November, the brand’s tetra milk cartons, milk powders and UHT long life milks will also be rebranded with the new design."

BEFORE

AFTER

Comments

[Andrew456]

um, check this
http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/4/12/8th-continent-soy-milk.html

[Nik]

hmmm, that's very similar....

[krithika]

Somehow the packaging makes me feel its detergent! not milk :(

[Mallika]

I thought it was detergent, too.

[WilhelmR]

@krithika wow, I thought it was some kind of bleach line until i saw your comment :)

And yes, i agree.. looks a lot like the 8th continent milk packaging.

[Allan]

I've been told the 8th continent soy milk was on the dieline at about the same time they were concepting this....

"inspired by the sun"? sureee..

[Brian Sparks]

wow, did they just rip them off. weak weak weak

[Jason]

In their defense, the similarity might be a case of parallel evolution.

I agree with krithika, though: it does look like detergent.

[ian-7]

I thought it was detergent too :)

[bobfish]

I agree BrianSparks - it could well be parallel evolution. lets face it, the sun has been used on all manor of packaging/logo work over the years, although not revolutionary, it does give that natural, healthy, 'feel good factor' that so many (particularly food) brands crave.

[jamesp]

I don't get the detergent comment - this looks exactly like what it is - MILK, the redesign is actually a very fresh and innovative take for a product known for playing safe and looking boring

[Sammo]

Instore you can't read the body copy... it's too small and the colours too similar. It does stand out in the NZ market though.

[Kay]

The bolness and use of block color actually looks really good instore - I always just grab whatever when it comes to milk, but this is seriously eyecatching seen enmasse, if the objective is to 'sell product' then this really works

[coffee87]

Doesn`t look like milk. The plastic container ruins it.

[grrl]

Coffee87 this is how all milk in NZ / Australia is packaged - brand irrespective - plastic containers. I personally miss the glass bottles and cartons, I suppose it's economics again. I think the logo looks v cute though...

[jam]

Looks like a major step backwards from where they were. The icon is over-powering in that it fights with the main descriptor and looks more like a rosette than representative of the sun.A few teaks could rescue it but it definitely does not look finished

[Davis]

I didn't like the old Anchor packaging at all, it was at best boring, at worst naff, this change is for good.

[pedant]

I really like how they moved the anchor logo embossed on the plastic post modern detergent shaped container from the bottom right to the top left.
inspired

[Gabrielle]

This looks like it would clean my clothes really well. :)

[CJFM]

I like it, it's fresh!