BBH launches “own-created” brands

Bartle Bogle Hegarty is launching two new brands, created in-house by the agency’s brand invention company Zag. Pick Me, a vegetable ready-meal, has launched in Tesco and a personal alarm system called Ila Dusk will debut in Marks & Spencer.

Zag, the brainchild of BBH founder Nigel Bogle was launched two years ago in an attempt to invent own-brands and take them to market with joint venture partners. Zag is run by chief executive Neil Munn, a former Unilever marketer.

Pick Me is a pre-prepared meat-free food range that has been launched in over 800 Tesco stores. Zag worked with recipe creator Elizabeth Leath to develop the Pick Me brand and develop the strategy.

Ila Dusk is a personal security brand designed to keep women safe, which has a unique female scream instead of a siren. This is in response to the insight that women can sometimes lose their voice when adrenalin kicks in under stressful circumstances. It will launch this month and will be sold exclusively at Marks & Spencer for three months and then will be extended to major retailers.

Nigel Bogle (pictured), founder BBH and Zag, says: “At BBH we have been providing big, enduring ideas for clients for 26 years. What is evident is that our experience of developing and launching our own brands will enable us to have more empathy and commercial awareness of what our clients go through. Every advertising agency, given the chance, should put its money where its mouth is and step into its clients shoes at some stage. There is no guarantee that we will succeed every time but the trying creates value in itself.”

Zag is currently working with various other partners as part of its drive to bring further new brands to market. These include industry fragrance company Givaudan and publisher Penguin. Zag has also taken an equity stake in the food brand, Mrs Beeton.

It is also providing the private equity industry with brand risk assessment and new deal flow services, and has worked with a variety of private equity houses including Apax and the Carlyle Group.