Indesit by Wolff Olins

Italian white goods manufacturer Merloni wanted to reposition its tired old Indesit brand as a company that would appeal to young consumers across Europe. Wolff Olins created a brand concept which could be applied to all communication material including the Web, corporate and technical literature, advertising and promotion. This focuses on Indesit’s core values – simple, reliable, strong, involving, value for money rather than cheap. The client wanted consumers to have an emotional response to the products – it had to be about more than just function. ‘The new Indesit identity had allowed us to give a new personality to a dormant brand through a bottom-up process, which generated a strong commitment by everyone in the company,’ says Luca Manuelli, marketing director. He adds that the identity ‘represents a unique example in the white goods industry of empowerment of the brand values. It has the merit of having created a clear, but at the same time flexible, format with the opportunity of capitalising on and sharing good ideas generated by our different markets.’

One of the reasons that Indesit chose to work with Wolff Olins was because it provided strategic and creative support and took into account the limited financial resources available to invest in the brand.

Doug Hamilton, Wolff Olins creative director, says that the repositioning ‘is helping the chief executive officer to make fundamental changes to the Merloni business, helping the organisation to change the way it thinks about itself [an Italian domestic appliance manufacturer], and change the way it behaves and communicates.’