The White Stuff: How Advertising Helped Stretch Hovis Without Breaking it

How Hovis in 1991 took the brand into the premium white bread market, building on a brand equity developed on the notion of brown, health and heritage.
Agency: Collett Dickenson PearceAuthors: Anthony Tasgal

The White Stuff: How Advertisng Helped Stretch Hovis Without Breaking it

THE BACKGROUND

This case history seeks to demonstrate the role played by advertising in helping British Bakeries (part of the Ranks Hovis McDougall group) capitalise on its Hovis brand by guiding it safely into uncharted territory: the white bread market.

From 1886, and its beginnings as the original wheatgerm flour, until 1975, Hovis remained an uncut wheatgerm loaf. Only in 1989, when it absorbed the Windmill wholemeal bread brand, did it become a genuinely comprehensive and mainstream brown bread...

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