Where did Nikoline go?This summer (2010) Royal Unibrew changed the design of their soft drink brand Nikoline.
Nikoline is 32 years old and has been an icon in the Danish soft drink market. Nikoline is know as being a high quality soft drink and the Nikoline woman has always been a symbol of quality and "home made" values. The demand of these values is getting bigger and bigger in the Danish consumption. This demand comes from a increasing wish of beeing in harmony with what we do, eat, and drink. In a longer periode of time new soft drinks and gobal brands in general has been introduced to the Danish market. In the media industri we talk about media overload and in parallel I would argue that we are experiencing a overload of brands on all mature markets. This overload combined with the new world order (the global world) result in a need to get back to what we know and like. Brands that tells a story and has a personal ID in the consumers consciousness should be nursed and taken care of in a world where we are slowly loosing our identity.
This summer Royal Unibrew made a new design for their orange soft drink Nikoline. The colour code of the new design, and the Nikoline text-holding device is the same but where did Nikoline go? Nikoline has been a symbol of quality for several generations and has been the front figur in the commercial communication. Royal Unibrew wants to give the soft drink a younger profile and belives that Nikoline is old fashioned. therefore they have removed her from the product/ design and introduced a orange as the logo!
I think it is a petty that Royal Unibrew didn’t refresh the Nikoline woman and design over time making her more illustrative and contemporary instead of removing her. I believe that the quality brand signals of Nikoline has been replaced with the same young, fresh, and urban values as almost every other soft drink brand on the market; contributing to the brand overload in Denmark. I hope I will be wrong in a year’s time when Royal Unibrew looks at the brand performance and even so I still think it is a petty when companies doesn’t protect and develop/ update existing icons.
