Velvet to take on Andrex with new positioning

A £10.5m campaign will see it drop the baby MD character and instead focus on its three trees sustainability initiative, which pledges to plant three new trees for every one it uses in the production of its products.

It wants to position the brand as one that balances sustainability and quality.

The campaign will see the Velvet brand shift from “soft and sustainable” to “ethical luxury”. SCA marketing director Richard Nall says the change reflects how consumers are evolving and want to engage with brands.

Nall adds: “We had to identify what is the best brand strategy for the business and the right way to communicate the brand and the idea of ethical luxury. It’s time to move on and the three trees logo is a more important symbol than the Baby MD.”

“There will be a greater balance between the three pillars of soft, premium and sustainable that the brand is built on. We need to bring them together and make sure that there is no trade off between quality and sustainability,” says Nall.

The company admits that while it is bigger than rival Kimberly Clark, it is not as well known and there is a job to do to raise awareness.

Nall says the company is taking a challenger brand strategy and clearly segmenting its Velvet and Cushelle toilet tissue brands so that each has a distinct point of difference to take on market leader Andrex, which has a mass market, broad positioning.

It will also launch a major campaign for Cushelle in 2012 to follow on from the relaunch earlier this year.

The velvet brand is worth £129m, growing at 12.7% year on year, according to Kantar figures and holds a 12.7% share of the market by value.

It has grown 19.7% since 2008, when it introduced the three trees programme.

A TV campaign, created by Fallon uses Zoetrope animation to create a flickbook story created from velvet toilet tissue will launch on 1 October as part of a multimedia campaign to back the Velvet relaunch.