To hell and back

This is the best news I've heard for a long time. Callum Davies and his mates at Hell have bought back their baby. The Tasman Pacific Foods Group purchase three years ago was a disaster. It was fifteen million dollars the boys needed to take Hell to the rest of the world but they also now know that large corporates are not the best custodians of boutique brands (see my last blog). In just three years Tasman Pacific succeeded in getting seriously offside with the franchisees, they tried to lift sales by slashing costs, they showed a complete lack of understanding of what they had bought.

Fontera’s purchase of Kapiti has all the hallmarks of a similar fate. The only difference is that Fontera will know how to milk the brand dry before they destroy it’s ‘heart’.
It took Ross McCallum twenty plus years to create Kapiti (Callum has worked in Hell for a similar time period). Brand bashing corporates can bleed delicate brands dry in only a couple of years.

Lane Walker Rudkin has gone down the toilet along a frightening number of other one hundred plus year old companies in the last few years. These iconic brands are worth fortunes and large corporates are seriously mismanaging the brand equity that has been built up over years of investment, toil and sweat. It is a form of asset stripping gone mad. It is also at the crux of this so called global recession. Mass destruction of trust, value and quality.
I’m sure businesses would protect their investment if they knew how but the problem highlights the fact that major companies, their legal, financial and marketing advisers know next to nothing about brands. They think brand is something they own and bleed rather than something thay should nuture and ‘garden’.

So here is my advice to all big corporations. Watch carefully the road to Hell and learn. Callum and his team will get things back on track I know. They are very clever people. They understand the essence of a brand. They understand Hell connects with franchisees and customers alike. They understand that Hell is more than fast food. They treat it with care, they love it to bits and they will stay with the game plan.

Callum's road to Hell has always been paved with good intentions. He now sits on a well deserved wad of cash in his back pocket after buying back the franchise for a fraction of the original sale price but a devil of a job in front of him.

Bring on the resurrection.