Blason Prestige (agricultural meat industry): A cooperative brand for meat retailing in France. New brand launched since 1986.
CONTEXT
Limousine cattle has evolved to become famous in France for its very high quality meat. The historical French provinces of Limousin and Marche is a region where the soil of its hilly condition and variation in its weather temperature makes it suitable to develop a hardy cattle breed. With its unusually thin but solid bone and being heavily muscled, this cattle very appropriately becomes very soft tasty meat in cuisine.
The French market was getting overflooded with Argentinian and other countries’ mass produced beef in the hyper and super markets. At the same time, in every corner street, there have always been an independent beef and pork shop which has higher quality meat than super market products. Those who are fascinated with artisanal meat, which happens to be a huge number in France, they normally go to such shops. Till that time, there was no organised retail on the street in the meat category.
PURPOSE
Limousin agricultural cooperative wanted to promote Limousin beef as a high specialty French culinary across France.
OBJECTIVE
They appointed us in 1986 to create a brand and its retail atmosphere for selling Limousin beef only. With a franchise model across the country, they wanted to bring a bigger dimension to the independent butcher shops in the corner streets of France.
STRATEGIC EXECUTION
To create a meat brand, a distinct character of meat was highly required. We created a strong symbolic expression using the power of the rising sun and fertility of nature in the brand. The name we created was Blason Prestige as a modern coat of arms. It had no connotation of beef but displayed high sophistication of the culinary image. We translated the Blason Prestige brand as a prestigious coat of arms to signify the high quality product in a noble way. The black colour surrounding the brand’s prominent red and green created a French royal effect on the brand. We created a brand architecture to integrate different kinds of meat. So from the street when you see the shop anywhere in France it immediately connotes a high quality branded butcher shop with the ambience of Limousin and with a huge appetite appeal. There are multiple Blason Prestige retails across France. This is an example of high standard branding of a cultivated agricultural product.