RETROWURST: Austria January 2008

Back in January 2008, I had a little slalom through Austria and its brands such as Red Bull, Almdudler, Meinl, Handl, Giesswein and Pez.

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Maybe because I have just come back from my skiing holiday and maybe because it’s one of the host countries for the European Cup this year, I thought I would take a quick look at Austria and a few Austrian brands this month.

 

When most people in the UK think of Austria, they think of Vienna or Salzburg, of skiing or the Sound of Music, of the blue Danube or Apfelstrudel or of Sachertorte or Lederhosen. But when we think further, we see that Austria is a land of contradiction. On the one hand, there are the years of civilization and great culture and philosophy and on the other hand there is the dark period of history last century. This is the land that produced Mozart, Strauss, Schubert and Freud as well as Arnie, DJ Ötzi and Hitler. The population is a multi-ethnic mix, but almost all speak German. 

 

Austria has a total population of 8.2m, just a tenth of that of Germany. A quarter of these live in Vienna or its suburbs. The ethnic mix includes Hungarians, Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, Czechs, Slovenians, Turkish, Italians and Albanians as well as the “Roma” who are an officially recognized ethnic minority. This reflects Austria’s key position in the centre of Europe and its imperial history.

 

Austria is one of the top 10 richest countries in the world with a very high standard of living. Employment is relatively low at under 5% (c/f Germany at 9%) and the economy shows a positive development above the EU average.

 

Austrian values include love of the beautiful countryside (much of Austria is mountainous), pride in traditions including food and music, love of closeness of family and friends, Gemütlichkeit (unique feeling of “cosiness”) and pride in roots and longevity. Many families in Austria have lived in the same town for generations and family firms are abundant. Although they like to think of themselves as a progressive company, Austria is woefully behind other EU countries regarding the status of women. There are precious few women in senior management or in politics (for all Germany’s backwardness in this area, at least we have “Angie”!) and there is a huge salary gap between men and women in equivalent positions. In a largely catholic country, women are not particularly encouraged to go back to work after having children and childcare facilities are inadequate.

 

Some Austrian Brands

Red Bull: covered in a previous Extrawurst

Some of the Austrian values are reflected in some classic Austrian brands that I have chosen to give just a little snapshot of. 

 

 

ALMDUDLER

www.almdudler.com

If you thought that coffee, or some nasty Schnapps was the national drink of Austria, you would be wrong: it’s Almdudler! Almdudler, for those who have not tried it is a “herbal lemonade” – actually, it tastes a bit like ginger ale. Almdudler the company has been going for over 50 years, and the website has a competition at the moment for the “best traditional costume couple”. In case you’re missing a jaunty feather hat or Edelweiss choker to go with your Dirndl, you can also buy these from the Almdudler site.

 

MEINL

Julius Meinl started roasting coffee on the family stove in Vienna in 1862 and popularized freshly roasted coffee. Since this time, the company has not looked back, despite excursions beyond the core competence into retail, for example. The logo of the “little coffee boy” is very well-known and reflects the history of coffee in Austria: coffee was brought to Vienna by the Turks in 1683.

 

HANDL

www.handltyrol.at

Handl sell dried bacon, ham and sausages in many varieties and make use of Tyrolean imagery on their packaging, reflecting the authentic nature of the products. They had a very interesting media idea to advertise their sausage snack products with posters at ski-lift stations in the winter season: after all, a spicy hard sausage is just the thing for those long rides in the chairlift!

 

GIESSWEIN

www.giesswein.com

Giesswein are based not a million miles from Kitzbühel and are known world-wide for their boiled-wool jackets and slippers which are available in both traditional and fashionable styles for adults and children.

 

PEZ

The name PEZ comes from the German for Peppermint, Pfefferminz. It may surprise you to know that what became part of pop culture in the US was invented in Vienna in 1927. The sweets were introduced to the US in 1952 and, in 1955; the first character dispensers were introduced. These have become cult collectors’ items which are collected with the fevour that some collect Kinder Surprise figures here in Germany. I am sure that Arnie would agree that sometimes you have to get out of Austria and over to the USA to get people to take you seriously!

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While the political situation in Austria has got a little messy in recent years, Austria’s brands all seem to be on Red Bull. This brand is now worth €8.7 billion and is growing by 11%. Generally, Austrian brands are doing better when it comes to growth than those of their German-speaking neighbours. Following Red Bull in 2nd and 3rd position are two banks - Erste bank and Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). Also notable is the grocery discounter Billa, part of the REWE empire, growing at a whopping 70% in terms of value. 

And maybe the sweetest get-together on the branded front is Almdudler with Haribo - not Gümmibärchen, but Gümmipärchen!

 

Shapes of things before my eyes?

 

The picture above is from Page 48 of the Capgemini Research Institute report “From Complexity to Clarity: How CMOs can reclaim marketing to build competitive edge.”

This is a glimpse into the not-too distant future, an illustration of what Web 4.0 aka symbiotic web or intelligent web might mean for the retail experience (if we have to call it that.) In case you’re wondering, the definition of Web 4.0 in the reference section of the report is:

an emerging concept that envisions seamless collaboration between humans and AI agents, as well as between AI agents and AI agents. The interactions become real time, context aware, connects the digital and physical worlds, becomes context-aware and ubiquitous. (sic)

Now, far be it from me to be all unseamless and frictional and suggest this definition is just a touch complex and repetitive to boot, but there we go.

I’ve got a number of questions.

How can an “interaction” become aware of context or anything else? Are these AI agents sentient beings?

Where is the brand in all this? I’m a runner, too and have been known to jog in my jaunty way into a sports shop. At the moment, I’m off Nike for what some would argue are childish reasons. But let me have my fun. I’m quite keen on Asics as they’ve been good shoes in the past. But I’m also open to Adidas as - rightly or wrongly - I feel that they’re local and I kind of feel emotionally attached to them. Especially as I had an Adidas sports bag to carry my school books which I now think was the epitome of cool.

Does this only work when you have let every single scrap of your data be harvested - health, sport, purchases? Does it only work when the human customer is assessed like a performance machine?

And what happens when the customer is having a crap day and the AI agent’s voice sounds just like his ex-wife’s and he’s in a subversive mood?

I’ll put together a more grown-up discussion of where I think these “Future of Marketing” reports are missing a trick at a later stage. 

But for now, I'm looking forward to this:

 A jolly piece of brand content from days of yore

RETROWURST: Edeka August 2007

 

The subject of this month’s Retrowurst is Edeka - the German Coop. Back in 2007, it was already over 100 years old and thriving. The supermarket had recently introduced a new corporate identity with “blackboard visuals” - focussing on the handmade/local element of their freshness and food strength.

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Whenever retail successes are discussed, in Germany as elsewhere, most of the talk centres on the discounters, such as Aldi or Kik, or on the new kids on the block (or stores in the mall, or sites on the Web.) But, just as the centenarian Marks & Spencer continues to be one of the UK’s retail success stories, Germany’s “old lady” of the grocery world, Edeka, has likewise enjoyed similar success here over the last few years.

 

Edeka’s story is an interesting exercise in making a very old concept relevant for today, not by throwing everything away and replacing with a hip new idea, but by looking at the original concept and seeing what, within this, is both relevant to today’s customers and offers a point of difference to the competition.

 

Edeka, which is either 100 or 109 years old this year, depending on how you look at it, is the German “Co-Op”. Edeka can trace its roots back to 1898 when Fritz Borrmann founded the “Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler in Halleschen Torberzirk zu Berlin”, of which “E.d.K” or Edeka” as you would speak it is the abbreviation. As an aside, I have noticed quite a few brand names in German are actually abbreviations of this type. As everyone knows, German is a language full of words that go on for sentences if not paragraphs, so it is useful to talk about a KiTa rather than a Kindertagesstätte (Kindergarten), about KiBa, which is a mixture of cherry (Kirsch) and banana juice, or to address someone as HaPe, who is normally saddled with the name Hans-Peter.

 

In 1907, Borrmann and his co-op partners formed the “Verband deutscher Kaufmännischer Genossenschaftler” or German Co-operative Society under the motto “Gemeinsam sind wir stark (Together we are strong).”

 

One hundred years later, Edeka is the number one grocery/food retailer in Germany, ahead of Aldi and Lidl. Edeka has a 26% share, ahead of next competitors Rewe at 18% and Aldi at 17%. There are over 10,000 stores in Germany and turnover is €37.2 bn. The growth and success of Edeka in recent years coincided with the appointment of Alfons Frenk as CEO of Edeka AG in 2003. Herr Frenk is an ambitious man with a tough background behind him. As one of six children growing up in a poor family in post-war Germany, Frenk knew shortages and hardship from an early age, resulting in an obsessive drive never to squander resources and to watch every pfennig. Herr Frenk is not content with Edeka’s number 1 position: he wants to reach a market share of 30% and to expand at a rate of opening 200 new Edeka stores per year. Part of his strategy is acquisition: Edeka has recently bought Spar and the discounter chain Netto.

 

While other retailers see diversification into non-food areas and expansion outside Germany as the way forward, Frenk’s strategy is exactly the opposite. Edeka has set its focus on fresh food and on Germany, withdrawing Edeka’s interests outside of the home market. This focus, combined with very keen attention to costs has meant an increase in profits of +60% since Frenk was appointed. Although it is tempting to make comparisons with a figure like Ingvar Kamprad, one must remember that Alfons Frenk is the head of a very different organisation to an IKEA or an Aldi. Edeka is a co-operative and its CEO does not have ultimate power.

 

Edeka has an extremely complicated organisational structure with regional co-operatives and societies. The store managers are mostly self-employed and the whole system has something rather mediaeval about it, akin to the feudal system with its regional barons. It was something of a revolution that Frenk managed to centralise Edeka’s computer system and his main challenge is to get the various factions working together to combine their strength and to improve overall efficiency.

 

Edeka’s heterogeneity is reflected in the different names it uses for its outlets, dependent on type, size and region. Under the “E” Edeka branding are “nah & gut”, “active markt”, “neukauf”, “center” and “C&C Großmarkt” (the Cash & Carry). In addition, a number of other retail chains such as Spar and Netto now belong to Edeka.

 

For the last two years, Edeka has been running an image campaign focusing on the main consumer benefit or point of difference for a heterogeneous, co-operative with local focus: “Freshness”, particularly in the areas of fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy produce. The staff and their specialist knowledge are key differentiating factors for Edeka and, although fresh food only represents 25% of the turnover, the margins are highest in this area. The tagline “Wir lieben Lebensmittel”, (“We love food groceries”) and the key visual of the blackboard stand for the specialist knowledge and passion of the staff and for the “handmade” and “local” feel that Edeka has:

 

 

 

 

But, while Edeka are single-minded in their brand communication, in retail one cannot ignore the competition. To compete with Aldi, Edeka have their own shop-in-shop “Gut und Günstig” where basic packaged groceries are offered at Aldi-like prices. The trick here, say Edeka, is to offer exactly the same deal where the public know the price to the nearest cent, such as milk, but to allow a few cents more on products that are not daily basics, such as mustard

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Edeka goes from strength to strength. In 2024, it was the 6th biggest supermarket in Europe, and turnover has more than doubled since the €37.2 bn quoted in the article to €75.3 bn.

The brand has a clever balance in its communication - advertising that gets noticed - sometimes cheeky, even provocative. A good example here is the brand throwing its political weight around in its anti-AfD advertising and action. I’m generally not a huge fan of brands and politics, but somehow Edeka gets away with it, in my view. 

Maybe that’s because of the solid consistency of the blackboard/Wir lieben Lebensmittel approach - definitely still going strong. And still looking fresh.

Potemkin Perfection

 

I don’t often read recently-published novels. Probably due to my weird penchant for living in the past, and I often think the old stuff is going to be more enduring. But now and then I have a go at something new, and, in the case of Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, I was pleasantly surprised.

Here’s what I made of this tale of two digital nomads set in the first two decades of the 21st century:

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This is a brilliantly observed novel, describing in detail the life on- and offline of a young couple, from the early 2000s to 2019. I say “the life” in singular, as Anna and Tom, digital creatives, are written mainly as one entity. The pair are originally from Italy, but find their way to buzzy Berlin at the time of the digital boom and the rise of social media.

Reading the first few pages, you wonder if you’ve stumbled into a talking IKEA catalogue or similar. The style is unemotional, descriptive, rather flat. This is curious initially, but soon mesmerising as you drift into a curated, algorithmically determined world where the public persona rules supreme and reality is “stuffed away into huge, clear storage boxes.”

Of the couple, the author writes: “Anna and Tom had grown up with the notion that individuality manifested itself as a set of visual differences, immediately decodable and in constant need of updating”. Their Instagram world of curated ephemera includes vintage clothes, cupcakes, crystalline coastlines, airy apartments, flowers and book covers. And “they would find themselves utterly mesmerised by the apartment, kale salad or kitten of someone living two blocks or two continents away. They would get worked up about silly fights between strangers.”

Offline, Anna and Tom live in a similar bubble, together with kindred ex-pat creatives. They frequent trendy clubs, Instagrammable restaurants and edgy art exhibitions. This bubble is like a 21st century global digital version of a Potemkin village - curiously flat and lacking in substance.

Gradually, the pair recognise a lack of purpose or fulfillment and attempt to rectify this via volunteer work in a refugee camp. But their digital creative skills cannot be usefully deployed here.

As the years pass, the couple sense the pain of a generational change and leave Berlin, returning to Southern Europe. Although the ending hints at a new stability, one cannot ignore the date - 2019. My mind continued to tick over when I’d finished the book, wondering what happened to Anna & Tom (and their ilk) in the pandemic.

Insightful, thought-provoking, well-written and translated, “Perfection” evokes the spirit of the early 21st century in Europe (almost) perfectly.

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And even though I’m a little older than the protagonists, I had several ouch-been-there-done-that-moments.

Needless to say. I read Perfection on my Kindle, as is my wont these days. I still hanker after real books, to be honest, yet this was the perfect book to read on Kindle, which enhances that flat, Potemkin village feeling. 

Just as I’d finished the book, though, I saw a wonderful sight just down the road which could just be the start of the way back to real books. It’s kind of the opposite of a Potemkin village - an inside-out bookshop - Bruchköbel’s very own bricks and mortar brand.

Our relocated local bookshop, the Rathaus Buchhandlung, designed by the Artbau Gruppe. Congratulations to all concerned, and much success with the new shop. 

 

RETROWURST: Kik June 2007

 

What surprised me the most about my article about the fashion discounter Kik, back in June 2007, was the Creative Director asking “who?” Blimey, I thought our echo chambers were bad enough now!

Anyway, here’s how the wonderful world of Kik looked 18 years ago:

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This month, it is the turn of one of Germany’s fastest-growing retailers to be the subject of Extrawurst. A couple of weeks ago, there was a comment on one of the Brand Republic blogs about the brands “loved by metrosexuals” that seem to creep into every seminar and conference like the usual suspects. Brands like Apple, Nike and Innocent. The author called for celebration of Unfashionably Brilliant Brands such as Argos, National Express and Travelodge. Well, you will be forgiven for not being familiar with the brand I’m going to write about if you live in the UK, but I was a little worried recently when a creative director here in Germany had to ask “who?” when I mentioned this brand, so far away as it is from the world of advertising agency folk!

 

In fact, it is funny that this retailer should be a candidate for being Unfashionably Brilliant because it is a fashion retailer, Kik (www.kik-textilien.de ). Obviously the fashions that Kik sells are not really de rigueur in the creative departments of Hamburg and Berlin but no-one can deny that Kik is one of the few home-grown success stories of recent years in a somewhat lacklustre market.

 

If you have never experienced Kik, I can only say that, being kind, it is rather like a market (Wembley, if it still exists, rather than Camden Lock) or one of those “everything a pound” bazaar places. Being unkind, it is a depressing sort of jumble-sale with fashion mistakes from the last few years served up in sizes up to 6XXL!

 

Kik started 12 years ago in Bönen, Westphalia and now has over 2,000 stores with sales of around €1.2 bn (2006 estimated). The objective of the retailer is to get to 2,500 stores by the end of 2007. As Lidl has 2,750 stores here, you can get some idea of the size of the operation. The stores were originally in out-of-town locations, on bleak industrial estates but Kik is now going increasingly for city-centre locations.

 

The concept is incredibly simple: do what Aldi and Lidl do for food, but for clothing. But before you start thinking that this is a sort of German Primark, please stop. While Primark has some aspirations to fashion, style, service and even shopping experience, you can forget all of those with Kik. Kik is deliberately cheaper and no-frills-er than anyone else in the business. There are no shop-window displays or dummies in Kik. There are no bags unless you pay for them. There are no nice carpets or luxurious changing-rooms. There are a couple of mirrors in each store and a couple of tiny basic cubicles (without mirrors) should you want to try on a bikini. Generally, trying-on is discouraged as Kik worry that seeing yourself in an orange, purple and turquoise kaftan in the cold light of day could put you off purchase. On the other hand, they make a big thing of their “exchange without discussion” policy: being cynical, they probably think that, at these prices, people won’t bother to bring something back.

 

Kik relies on the impulse additional purchase. The way to the till is via a bazaar-like collection of bargains: toys, sweets, make-up and perfumes, greeting cards and wrapping paper and household goods such as rubbish bags and batteries. Most of these items sell for €1 or less. And the clothes are amazingly cheap: a T-shirt at €1.99 is cheaper than buying a pack of 8 toilet rolls!

 

Although the quality is not first-class, it is reasonable, especially for the price. Kik has some “minimum standards” ensuring that, while most of the clothes are produced cheaply in Asia, child labour is not used, nor are there any dodgy chemicals in the clothes. Although one gets the feeling that no more questions are asked than necessary about suppliers, Kik does make some effort in the direction of CSR with the “Help and Hope” Foundation, formed in 2005 to help children in poverty. However, it is not one of the top places to train or to work: there is a large turnover of staff and these are not really trusted or well-looked-after in the way that IKEA, for example, does.

 

But, going back to the clothes, one can’t really argue with the prices. Kik proclaim that you can “dress yourself for under €30” which they can certainly live up to. T-shirts are €1.99 and jeans are €7.99 – with no price increase since May 2002! Three pairs of socks will set you back a mere €1.99 and children’s jeans can be had for €4.99. In the non-clothing lines, the look-and-smell-alike perfumes are €2.99 and greeting cards and gift wrap €0.49.

 

Advertising and promotion are loud and cheerful, as you’ll experience if you click on the website link. Kik do a roaring business in outsize and there is no pussyfooting around here with size 14/16 models – the guys and girls that model the XXL collections are BIG!

Kik have found a very upfront and prominent form of promotion in terms of football tricots. As well as a number of major teams in the Bundesliga, Kik supplies kit to all manner of local and junior teams. And, when you can kit out a complete team (with a bag and ball thrown in) for a mere €99.99, who is to argue?

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Interesting that Kik foresaw and acted on the whole Plus-Size models thing - a pioneer of inclusivity if ever there was one!

In 2025, Kik are still plying their wares, successfully - with 4,200 stores across Europe. Sales have doubled to £2.4 bn since 2006. I haven’t been in there recently, but I had a quick look at the website and the usual suspects are all present and correct - paper plates with rainbow princess unicorns, sequinned denim jackets, garden gnomes. You can still get jeans for under €10 and a T-shirt for €3.49.

There was even a phase when Kik parties were a hip thing to do.

Kik have even more competition these days - not just from Aldi and Lidl - but there’s a whole army of discounters for textiles and bits & pieces - from TEDi to Takko. We’ve got a new Woolworth opening up round the corner, too.

One thing I omitted to mention in my original article is where the name comes from - it’s an acronym for “Kunde ist König”.

The customer is king (or princess). And maybe that’s less about a seamless customer journey/unique branded experience or whatever the latest buzzwords are, and more about a constantly-changing range of cheap and cheerful tat that’s within the reach of anyone’s wallet or pocket money. 

 

RETROWURST: Schreibwaren August 2006

 

Goodness me, how this piece on the mysteries of the German stationery shop and the strange rituals of school start takes me back. Back to another world where children born in the last century were only just starting school. They’re now winning Olympic golds and most likely running multi-billion AI companies, too.

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We are in the middle of the school summer holidays here in Germany. Rather cleverly, to avoid traffic jams, the different German Länder stagger the beginning of the six-week period, with some holidays starting as early as 26^th June and others starting as late as 3^rd August.

 

Despite the fact that we’re in the midst of the school holidays here in Hessen, the retailers are already filling their shop windows and shelves with the Schulanfang (School start) range. I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce you to one particular species of German retailer, the Schreibwarenladen, or stationer, and some of the main brands in the back-to-school market.

 

Before I embark on this, it has to be said as a foreword, that starting school in Germany is a very ernsthaft business. In the UK, introduction to school is gradual, with various pre-school possibilities and then a reception year, while in Germany, children move from the non-compulsory Kindergarten, where no “learning” in the sense of the 3R’s takes place, to the Grundschule, where it’s serious learning and teaching, albeit just for half a day. Children start school in Germany later than in the UK, at six or seven; so, for example, this year’s intake is children born between July 1999 and end of June 2000. In order to get a child accepted for school earlier, the child (and parents) has to go through a series of quite rigorous tests and interviews with teachers, school directors, pediatricians and the like to make sure that the little darling will be able to weather the tough time to come.

 

While getting all the bits and pieces together for starting school may focus more on uniform in the UK, German parents don’t have that to worry about. Enough mistakes have been made with children in uniform in the past here. So, in Germany, the bulk of the getting-ready-for-school purchases are made at the Schreibwarenladen.

 

The first day at school is celebrated traditionally in Germany by the poor child staggering into the playground clutching a thing which, rather unfortunately, resembles an upside-down clown’s or dunce’s hat. This is a Schultute and it is filled with pencils, small toys and a few sweets. In some cases, the Schultute is almost as big as the child itself, especially those children who are little younger, although, having been through the rigourous school acceptance tests, carrying an upside-down dunce’s hat brimming over with goodies while trying to maintain some sense of decorum probably does not present too much of a challenge. Needless to say, the Schultute is one item that is very prominent in the Schreibwarenladen’s window display and choosing the right pattern and size a matter of great concern as the Schultutewill feature with the child in all the inevitable photographs and may even be handed down through the generations.

 

So, onto the Schreibwarenladen. In Germany, there are no jolly own brands like Tesco or W.H.Smiths doing school requisites so it is over to the local independent dealer. In every German village, however small, there will be a shop selling stationery. This shop may also sell newspapers and magazines or toys. It will certainly also sell lottery tickets and perhaps a few sweets. The lady (as usually is) who runs the shop is likely to be a highly respected member of the community who takes a pride in her intimate knowledge of paper clips and staples, ring binders and pencil sharpeners with almost that air of being party to a great learning of mysteries that we observe in the Apothekerin. Her store is likely to have a rather old-fashioned air to UK sensibilities: the kind of place where you actually have to ask for things rather than just grabbing them self-service from the shelf.

 

Before we look at the main brands dominating this emporium, I would like to give a brief introduction to two other branded players in the starting school market. Now, up to two years prior to their children starting school, the Übermuttis (my best go at Yummy Mummy in German - not bad, I think!) will already be discussing whether little Florian or little Björna has got a Ranzen yet and which brand and pattern will it be and are they also getting the complete range of matching accessories? You may wonder what all the fuss is about a satchel, but satchels in Germany have become a science since Scout (https://www.scout-schulranzen.de) created the market for ergonomically designed school rucksacks back in 1975. These health & safety-conscious-inside and kitsch-child-appeal-gone-mad-outside Ränzen replaced the old leather school satchel overnight in Germany and the company has stretched the brand to include the accessories (purses, pencil cases, gym bags) to go with the basic school Ranzen, to bike helmets, to games, to discovery toys, to duvet covers and even to Müsli bars. Have a look at the website: this really is a child brand that manages to combine super design and quality with fun and child-appeal by the bucketful.

 

While talking about Scout, it is only fair to mention their main rival, the number 2 in the market with 25 years’ experience, www.mcneill.de . McNeill have not yet diversified as much as Scout, but they are also a high-quality supplier of Ränzen. In buying your child his or her school backpack, the salesperson will probably start by advising which of the two main brands is ergonomically more suitable for your child and how he or she walks before you get onto the really important stuff of whether it’s pirates or planets on the design. Incidentally, the designs on these bags bear absolutely no relationship to whichever TV programs, films or games are in with primary school children at the moment. You won’t find any Power Rangers, Barbie or Through the Hedge here, or any nasty commercial arrangements with Disney or Dreamworks, just rather Technicolor depictions of universal childhood interests.

 

It is when we consider what has to go into the Ranzen that the Schreibwarenladen and its brands come into their own. Parents of every Schulanfänger are provided with a rather alarmingly long and detailed list of drawing pads, pencils, paintbrushes of particular sizes, exercise books, covers for exercise books in specified colours, folders in specified colours and materials, crayons and modeling clay with a request that “high quality brands” be purchased “for the benefit of your child.” This is, of course, a conspiracy between the teachers and the Schreibwarenladen lady to make sure you don’t go buying that cheapo stuff at Aldi and Lidl. Of course, said brands do sometimes make a celebrity appearance at the discounters but, frankly, by the time you’ve battled your way through the ranks of the Übermuttis-on-a-budget at 8 am just to find that they haven’t got the colour that was specified any more, you might as well have saved the petrol money and got the whole lot at the well-mannered and old-fashioned Schreibwarenladen.

 

There is a plethora of high-quality stationery brands in Germany, some of which are also well-known in the UK. Looking at the brands as a whole, judging from their websites, most of them pride themselves on their long history, their “Made in Germany” quality and the number of quality awards, seals and insignia they have won. In the websites, you enter another world of worthy philosophies, elegant historic engravings and endorsements from the highest authorities. It brings quite a lump to one’s throat to think that this worthy presence is Marketing, too!

 

www.brunnen.de is a good place to start. A family firm for generations and proud of it, the brand Brunnen has been around now for over 100 years and covers all manner of school and office requisites. At just one year younger, but another centenarian, www.herlitz.de is also well-known outside Germany. Herlitz is also in the Ranzen market.

 

Experts in colour, with a core range of paints, felt pens and crayons, www.pelikan.de have 128 years of experience in their field. Another name that is well-known outside Germany for their pencils is www.staedtler.de, the big granddaddy of the pencil world with 170 years in business.

 

If you go by the philosophy that “a bad workman always blames his tools”, German school children really have no excuse to perform so badly in comparison to their peers in other countries. One can only conclude that the system must be at fault, rather than the materials.

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Another world, indeed. The children starting school in the next few weeks were born in 2017/18 - younger than TikTok for goodness’ sake! McNeill has indeed sold out with McNeill x Disney.

But, but, but ... I took at look at Scout. Robots, kittens, dinosaurs and ponies still there. And one tie-in ... for the Bundesliga. 

Reassuring, somehow. And our local Scheibwaren shop still doing a roaring trade.

Can ostriches fly?

 

Next time I’m asked which is my favourite brand, I’ll be tempted to name Engelbert Strauss. I listened in to the OMR Podcast last week, where managing director Henning Strauss was the guest. Now, the first thing that hit me in the face about this brand is how extraordinary its success has been. 

From the early 2000s to now, sales have multiplied tenfold, from ca. €100m to ca. €1bn. The company has grown from 100 co-workers to around 1,600 today. That would be impressive enough for some Berlin tech start-up. But for a family firm based in Biebergemünd, deepest Hessen, who started off selling brushes and brooms?

A lot is down to the business model, which was the right one at the right time. How much is by design and how much chance and smart choices in the circumstances is hard to say. The fact is that the huge bulk of sales come from Engelbert Strauss’s own online channel. Throughout the company’s history, from the brooms and brushes on, it’s been direct selling, with no wholesalers involved. We call it D2B and D2C these days, and it’s done online rather than mail order or knocking on doors, but the principle hasn’t changed.

A catalogue as the main communication medium? A firm HQ in the middle of nowhere, that few have heard of? I can think of plenty of parallels with IKEA. Could Biebergemünd set up town-twinning with Älmhult? When I worked with IKEA, the spirit of Ingvar Kamprad was ever-present. It was a matter of pride that Ingvar always trusted his instincts rather than doing things by the “Best Practice in Management” book. And there’s a lot of following instinct at Engelbert Strauss, too. Henning Strauss’s period of study in LA had a huge emphasis on the decision to expand into the US. But more on that later.

So many companies bang on about their “Authentic Culture” these days, but family and roots you can’t fake. Ask IKEA, ask Engelbert Strauss. The family have always rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in with the daily business. Henning Strauss referred to the Biebergemünd HQ as their “extended living room” and the logo as “the family coat of arms.” And this democratic culture, like that of IKEA, can be summed up by the idea of a local hero who’s open to the world. When the company calls its customers, they can see the 0 60 50 Biebergemünd dialling code. It’s a Somewhere brand that is at home Anywhere. 

Business model, culture - the other Engelbert Strauss success factor is a biggie. Customers - relationship and psychology. The brand’s core customers are crafts- and trades- people. And what is clear about everything that Engelbert Strauss does is that it’s done with understanding of and respect for people who do, build, make, repair, maintain. Not just that, but elevating and celebrating Handwerk as something noble and praiseworthy. This all starts with the attention to detail that goes into product design - a typical pair of work trousers from Engelbert Strauss is made from 200 individual components. And that respect goes right through to the marketing. Partnerships and sponsorships are deliberately chosen not just for reach, but to reflect the core customer group interests - football, handball, egaming and heavy metal in the form of Metallica. 

Engelbert Strauss is not just a workwear brand today. It’s a lifestyle brand, worn by off-duty doctors, dog walkers and kindergarten kids. And freelance strategic planners (see above). The brand has ticked the Mark Ritson boxes to get where it’s got. Distinctiveness: name of founder with “quirky” potential outside DE, red & white ostrich logo. Full marks. And Relative Differentiation - not the only workwear brand, but certainly the “quality German engineering” one. 

These are internally-driven factors that have powered the success of Engelbert Strauss. There are broader human societal trends that have put a bit of turbo behind that. One is the recognition of and yearning for Real Work, which became clear to all in the pandemic. Without essential workers, everything ground to a halt. The people who can’t work from home, the people who work with hand and heart as well as head were our heroes. And so should they be.

AI can take over much of office work, generating content, speeding up mundane tasks. But can an AI-powered robot replicate the intrictate brain-hand coordination of an aircraft mechanic? No way. And learning a craft or trade is becoming more aspirational. Maybe it’s because the generation who grew up on Super Mario and Bob the Builder are now finding their way in the world of work. Young people are questioning whether an apprenticeship may be a more useful start in life than studying for years, running up a huge debt with no guarantee of a good job at the end of it. 

For those of us still stuck behind a desk, the more time we spend in the digital world, the more we yearn to get stuck into the physical world with our hands. Make, create, build - do something positive that won’t be lost in the cloud of ephemera. And pulling on a pair of Engelbert Strauss trousers has a psychological effect. You immediately feel more practical, more competent, more of a capable pair of hands. 

The final trend is the changing meaning of masculinity. While Engelbert Strauss is for everyone, its core is the adult male worker. And here, maybe the brand represents a positive, timely antidote to macho-macho and toxic masculinity. Constructiveness, grit, competence, ingenuity, down-to-earthness, honesty and yes-we-can-ness. These are all values that sit comfortably with Engelbert Strauss. 

The latest news from Engelbert Strauss is the US expansion. There are a few challenges with the market, just as there were for IKEA. Two huge competitors in the form of Dickies and Carhartt. The potential confusion with another famous Strauss who pioneered workwear in the USA in the 19th century. And, what the heck has that ostrich got to do with workwear anyway?

Ah, back to the ostrich. It’s obvious that Engelbert Strauss are not hiding any heads in sand. But can ostriches fly? Henning Strauss made it clear in the podcast that he’s not looking to be snapped up by an investor, and expansion is being kept within limits.

Maybe the question is more whether the ostrich wants to fly. Back to the topic of relative differentiation, being flightless means that the ostrich is the heaviest and largest bird on earth. And the fastest on land, with an impressive running speed of 70 km/h. Running, I understand, is far more energy-efficient than flying.

The ostrich’s wings aren’t used to fly. But they do have a role in balance, for courtship displays and for shade. It’s all about adaptation - something Engelbert Strauss are masters at. By design or intuition, head, hand or heart - who knows? But it works.

Engelbert Strauss LA Store exterior

P.S. Family firm, family favourite brand? My son’s nickname has been “Strauss” since his schooldays.

Status Quid

 

If any British retailer represents the Status Quo, it’s Marks & Spencer. That’s why I was a little taken aback, then rather tickled, to see this TikTok ad which seems to have upset the Status Quo of the advertising world.

The origins of the film are interesting. Campaign rather sniffily just refers to it being “in-house”. But what actually happened is that M&S have been giving their store managers autonomy to do their own thing on social media for a while now. One young store manager - the chap who appears at the beginning of this video, who’d been doing his own TikToks for a while - put up his idea via the digital equivalent of the old-fashioned staff suggestions box.

Advertising types in trendy parts of London, predictably, find the result quite ghastly. And yes, it is cheesier than the counters of all the M&S Food stores put together, but that is its charm. Why is Barbie acceptable cheesiness, while this is not? 

But even worse than the creative types tearing out their rainbow hair are the pompous planners on their high horses about branding. I am at a loss to understand how this little film - it’s hardly a multi-million image campaign - can be detrimental to the brand.

The message is highly relevant to our current “counting the pennies” situation. It shows that the brand knows exactly where people are.

The jollity and exuberance of band, staff, influencers and customers will surely attract a few more people in-store rather than ordering online.

Francis Rossi and his band are just as much a national treasure as Twiggy, Dawn French or any of the many M&S spokespeople - best of British and unafraid to take the p*ss out of themselves.

And the beauty of it is - as with top-notch humour - it unites people across generations. Rather like this rather more spectacular ad from Australia:

If Francis Rossi rakes in enough money to get a new guitar, I won’t begrudge him that.