Thames Water said it has not yet signed up for a plumbing or general household scheme but is keeping a
Thames Water said it has not yet signed up for a plumbing or general household scheme but is keeping a watching brief.One advantage of belonging to a call-out service is knowing you have an approved practitioner you can rely on, who is guaranteed to arrive within a couple of hours, with limited costs known in advance This peace of mind can be important when disaster strikes. Too many people are caught by cowboys from the Yellow Pages.Green Flag sells an emergency breakdown product, which offers cover for plumbing together with other household problems with heating, roofing, electrics, cookers, broken windows and so on.Premiums ranges from pounds 15.99 to pounds 96 a year. The scheme covers the first four hours of service plus pounds 100 of parts. Seven of the water companies and electrical utilities market this product, including Northeast Water and Yorkshire Water..
IT IS undoubtedly a sticky problem: to have a name that is so well known it has become generic. Take Hoover, which in common parlance has even become a verb. Now, Sellotape is fighting back - it relaunched last week after a pounds 2m redesign and brand overhaul that has taken 18 months. "This represents the most significant change in the brand's 60-year history," says Neil Ashley, the executive director of the renamed business, The Sellotape Company. "We've been offering a wide range of products for some time, but still we were known only for our sticky-tape." The Sellotape heritage has proved a double-edged sword: nine in ten people know it, yet familiarity has constrained the business - affecting consumer perceptions of the brand and restricting plans for diversification and growth. Michael Peters, chairman and executive creative director of the branding specialist Identica, which has developed the new look and re-branding, is blunt: "While it's a very famous trademark, it's a grey one." When Identica was brought in by the company, formerly known as Sellotape GB Ltd, its brief was simple: to reposition and regenerate the brand, enabling the company to grow.The decision to reappraise Sellotape's branding was the result of a company review that attempted to change the corporate culture internally - removing old hierarchies in favour of project teams to foster an entrepreneurial spirit.
The end result is a new name, new corporate identity featuring a running man, new sub-brands, and new packaging in its three core markets: retail, office and DIY.Qualitative research shows people happily ask for Sellotape in a shop, yet readily accept another brand because they do not see significant product differences and because of price - rival products that do not use cellulose- based tape are cheaper, Mr Peters explains. "Research also shows people buy, on average, just one roll of tape a year. The aim is to boost this to two, through stimulating more impulse buys and developing new products."Earlier this year the first phase of this process saw the launch of Elephant Tape - a heavy-duty fabric tape intended for DIY. A new range of products has now been designed for the office market under the new sub-brand Sellotape Office.Next spring the company will move into the children's market. It is now working with The Generics Group, a science and technology consultancy in Cambridge, to develop Sellotape products for security in the home.