FCUK the argument that ‘ideas’ can’t build brands

While I have no intention of becoming embroiled in the Jaffa Cakes packaging cake fight, I do have to take issue with Don Williams (Letters, DW 25 November) when he says that you can’t build a brand identity with a creative ‘idea’.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but isn’t one of the most successful re-brandings of the past decade (FCUK) based on a creative ‘idea’?

He also says that ‘the difference between advertising and branding is that campaigns come and go, whereas branding has to go on forever’. If only.

How many pages of design magazines are devoted to examples of that great design consultancy money-spinner, ‘rebranding’?

Perhaps that is evidence that ‘consumers have tired of the “brand”, or it has become irrelevant to them’ – exactly the weakness, according to Williams, of a creative ‘idea’.

Now I could be getting hot under the collar for no reason, or maybe Williams was really taking about there being no room for creative ‘ideas’ in packaging, but here again, I think that there might be a number of people who would beg to differ (Jif lemon juice for one).

Perhaps the answer is to come up with creative ‘ideas’ that work with the brand to ensure that both survive the test of time (see Famous Grouse).

Chris Hughes

Creative director

WAA

Sutton Coldfield B72 1SY