Time waits for no brand: how Aga cooked up a more prosperous future.
It’s one of the recurring ironies of business life that, in time, a company’s strength can become its weakness. Aga discovered this the hard way.
The brand’s very name conjures up bucolic images of country manors and farmhouse-style kitchens. Since the iconic cast-iron cooker was introduced to the UK from Sweden in 1929, it has enjoyed a privileged place in the nation’s consciousness.
Yet Aga’s past had become a prison, its brand image at odds with a younger, urban breed of cooking enthusiast. The firm realised it had to rethink itself, while retaining the style and quality that had made it so unique in the first place. To find the answers, Aga turned to the Design Council’s Designing Demand programme.
Geoff Harrop, Aga’s former managing director, says: “Initially we wanted to use Designing Demand to help us think of new sales ideas, but what it helped us do was go back to basics, look at the brand and say that any product with our brand on it should have Aga attributes and be related to the core Aga product. That proved to be a much better formula than simply asking ‘what else can we sell?’ ”
The core Aga product was extended and supplemented to reach new markets. The company won plaudits for eco-friendliness with an Aga made from 70% recycled materials, which is 70% future recyclable. A simple 13-amp electric cooker was developed to make the range relevant to people who weren’t lucky enough to have large, country-style kitchens and a special edition, the Four-Two Mini, was introduced for owners of small city flats.
In 2007, these electric models gained value – and green credentials – with the introduction of the Aga Intelligent Management System (AIMS). With the option to programme the stove to a ‘sleeper’ setting, owners could return to a warm home – and cooked meal – while minimising energy consumption. Sister brand Rayburn benefited from the emphasis on energy efficiency and the development of a new model, the XT, for urban homes. The brand gained visibility with the establishment of the Rayburn Guild, a nationwide network of authorised dealers.
We are a very successful company, but when you’re successful you can be arrogant Geoff Harrop, Aga
The new products were accompanied by a new image. The public was confused by the relationship between Aga’s two brands – Aga and Rayburn – so the Designing Demand team set about defining distinct values for each.
The Aga range, which encompasses cookware and related cleaning products, was redesigned to present a more uniform face. A new tableware line was developed with Portmeirion – another Designing Demand participant.
The financial return on this investment is impressive. In 2005-06, profits were up 14% on 2003-04, and exports soared 38%. Investment in the cookware range has paid off, with sales rising from £2m to around £7m over four years.
The project radically changed Aga’s approach to its brands. “The programme was a catalyst,” says Harrop. “We are a very successful company, but when you’re successful you can be arrogant, and Designing Demand helped us focus on some of the basic principles of assessing our brands. We started a template system for what we put our name on that became ingrained.” Aga still invests more in design than it did before it entered the Design Council programme, and product development is “more active than ever”. The company can now market itself as much more than a design classic.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 4, Summer 2008