History
Interflora is a flower delivery network associated with over 58,000 affiliated florists over 140 countries. It was founded in 1923 under Florists Telegraph Delivery Association (FTDA). In year 2014, the Interflora British Unit has reached £102.7m of revenues. Customers can make their purchase online, via telephone or through one of their florist shops. Over the years, Interflora has been competing within the flower delivery market with online brands such as Arena Flowers or high street names such as Marks & Spencer. Therefore, Interflora differentiates from competitors by their award winning design skills and service with a true personal touch.
Current Strategy
Brand analysis
Target Market
Target market can be identified in three ways, which are geographic, demographic and psychographic. It is important for businesses to understand who their target market are in order to design a marketing plan or choosing the marketing communication tools well. In that case, businesses can reach their targeted consumers easier. Interflora targets their customers by three demographic groups, which are the Alpha Territory, Professional Rewards as well as Careers and Kids. Alpha Territory represents people with substantial wealth who live in the most sought after neighbourhoods, Professional Rewards represents experienced professionals in successful careers enjoying financial comfort in sururban or semi-rural homes whereas Careers and Kids represents families with young children where both parents are likely to earn solid incomes providing for a comfortable modern home. Interflora targeted these three demographic groups as they found that most of their customers have high household incomes and are aged between 26-55. Besides that, there is a high representation across affluent families with a skew towards more rural and suburban-based segments.
Brand Position
Brand Positioning can be defined as an activity of creating a brand offer in such a manner that it occupies a distinctive place and value in the target customer’s mind. This is to help brands understand how customers perceive them in relation to competitive brands. Furthermore, it also helps to understand which benefits are the most important to customers and how the brand uniquely associates in consumers’ mind. According to (Lepper, 2005) campaignlive, Interflora has restored its branding for direct marketing and other communications activity to position itself as the ‘flower experts’. Besides that, Interflora also attempted to persuade consumers that ‘only’ Interflora is the real flower expert through all kinds of creative campaigns and brand extensions. For example, in 2012, Interflora collaborated with Vera Wang, an internationally renowned figure within the wedding industry to launch new collection- Vera Wang Wedding Collection.
Brand awareness
Interflora has always come up with different campaigns and competitions to increase their brand awareness and create brand associations in consumers’ mind. For example, in year 2014, Interflora created a competition in collaboration with Grandparents’ Day to increase both the recognition of grandparents and Interflora. Besides that, Interflora also supports fund raising charities for example, the Breas Cancer Care. Every October, Interflora offers Breast Cancer Care bouquet where 10% of it will be donated to Breast Cancer Care. Since 2009, Interflora has raised over £500,000 for the charity.
Brand Element
Slogan
Business slogans have been used for many decades to help convey what a particular business can do for their customers. Due to the international delivery services Interflora provides, ‘Flowers World Wide’ is the slogan that appears on their logo. However, in their packaging, Interflora uses ‘The Flower Experts’ as their slogan. This is because they were licensed as ‘The Flower Experts’ since 1950s for their brilliant creative skills and extensive knowledge upon flower arrangements.
Logo
In order to encapsulate fast delivery and excellent service, Interflora chose the Mercury Man as their logo since 1914. This is because, in Roman religion, Mercury is the god of shopkeepers and merchants, travelers and transporters of goods, and thieves and tricksters. He is commonly identified as the fleet-footed messenger of the gods. Therefore, with the use of Mercury Man as logo, Interflora can benefit from the representation of their delivery speed as well as a worldwide flower provider. In year 1929, the Mercury Man logo was copyrighted as the official trademark for Interflora. However, in year 2014, Interflora rebranded and replaced the Mercury Man with a bird-like logo.
Packaging
According to Appendix, Interflora uses simple yet iconic logo, the Mercury Man, on every bouquet, with black packaging. However, since they rebranded in 2014, they changed their packaging from boxed and bagged designs to a strong, flat-pack carrier, which is 100% recyclable. The interlocking mechanisms allow the flowers to sits in place. Besides that, they also use a brown paper flower wrapping to offer the identity or an organic and personal feel. The printed pattern of the logo provides a decorative and floral element to the design.
Advertising
Distribution Channel
Brand relaunch
Weaknesses
According to the analysis above, there are several weaknesses of the current brand strategy.
• Increase target market to age 20-25 (graduation ceremony in Universities)
• Confusing slogan ‘The Flower Experts’ or ‘Flowers World Wide’ (deliver your regards)
• Logo (uses Mercury Man to express quality and represents them)
• Brand awareness (campaigns- International Womens Day)
• Packaging (black- dull/ change to brighter colours )
• Distribution channel
• Advertising
Target market
According to (timessquareclaremont), most people buy flowers to communicate their emotions. Not only is the act of giving someone flowers in itself a way of telling them they were on someone’s minds, but the specific type of flower can be used to convey a particular meaning. Furthermore, people buy flowers mostly not for themselves but to send as a gift. This is because flowers are useful gifts as people not only instinctively attracted to flowers but also improving their mental health. Therefore, Interflora should target new markets aged among 18 to 25. This is because the 18th and 21st birthdays are important celebrations in the United Kingdom. Turning 18 marks an official end to childhood whereas turning twenty-one is the induction into full adulthood. Besides that, the average age for a graduate student is 23. During graduation ceremony, most parents or siblings tend to send bouquets to congratulate the graduates. Therefore, Interflora should take the opportunity to attract these target customers during their special days.
Brand position
Interflora has been positioned as the ‘only flower experts’. However, there is high competition for online florists that also provide worldwide delivery. Therefore, in order to stand out from competitors as well as increase brand image and brand awareness as an environmental friendly florist, Interflora could consider collecting flowers
In order to create more associations for consumers, Interflora could create a campaign with International Women’s Day.
Slogan
As Interflora has two different slogans which are ‘The Flower Experts’ and ‘Flowers WorldWide’, it might be confusing for customers to relate to their brand. Therefore, the re-launch of Interflora will come up with a new slogan which is ‘Deliver Your Regards’. In that case, the way that Interflora cares about their customers’ thoughts to the recipient and their international delivery services will be expressed through this slogan.
Logo
Since 2014 when Interflora rebranded, the Mercury Man has been replaced by a bird-like logo which diminished the identity and meaning of the brand. Therefore, the Mercury Man will be used in the brand re-launch strategy. However, in order to make it more attractive, the bouquet held by the Mercury Man will be in colour.
Packaging
In terms of packaging, a 100% recyclable and reusable bag will be launched. In that way, the environmental friendly image of Interflora will be created. Besides that, instead of using a dull black packaging, silver colour will be used in the packaging. This is because silver colour is the symbolic of wealth and riches. As Interflora targets market with higher social class, silver colour might suit the target market more. Furthermore, the brand’s name and slogan on the packaging will be in red. This is to because red catches more attention.