The Hindu Business Line : Signature brand

In a world where the average grocery store has 25,000 products, the Cadbury signature, purple wrappers and ‘Glass and a Half logo’ are instantly-recognisable icons, writes John Bradley in Cadbury’s Purple Reign (www.wiley.com).

“In 1905, William Cadbury, on a visit to Paris, commissioned the first properly designed Cadbury logo from the noted French designer, Georges Auriol,” the author narrates. The ‘y’ was intertwined around a stylised cocoa tree, but the allusion was wasted, adds Bradley. Consumers would struggle to identify a cocoa tree, or perhaps even know that cocoa grows on trees, he explains.

“The famous Cadbury script logo that would replace the tree design and all the other Cadbury typefaces originated in 1921.” Interestingly, though, the idea of using a signature as the brand logo was borrowed from a competitor, Macpherson Robertson, the book traces. A year before the development of the script logo, the packaging colour of Dairy Milk had been changed from lilac to purple, informs Bradley. Ever since the days of Rome when only the emperor was allowed to wear a purple toga, purple has been associated with royalty. It was felt that Dairy Milk was equally deserving of such recognition…” A book to relish with a good supply of chocolates at hand!

D. Murali

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