Following the merger with United Co-operatives earlier this year more than half of the group's 4,500 strong estate of food stores, pharmacies, travel, funeral and bank branches will from today be united under a revamped Co-operative brand.
Customers may have already noticed the new Oxford blue style logo, used for the group’s financial interests and its insurance division the CIS.
Retail stores and other outlets will rebrand later carrying different colours, green for food, orange for travel and lilac for funeral services.
The first broadcast campaign to carry the new branding will be motor insurance ads later this month.
The group’s internet banking arm smile will retain its individual identity and is not expected to many changes.
When he announced the £200m ‘modernisation’ exercise last October, chief executive Peter Marks said: "There is far more to a brand identity than just the logo on our own label goods and the fascia outside an outlet. One of the main objectives of the re-branding is to improve the overall brand standards.
"The inconsistency of our brand has been a major failing for far too long. This modernisation programme will address that."
The company claimed that sales at the 115 food stores that were refitted in the first half of 2007 are up 15 per cent compared to a 4.6 per cent increase across the chain as a whole.
Linked to the rebranding exercise, The Co-operative has also relaunched its membership scheme across all outlets and reintroduced its famous share of profit or dividend.
The group hopes the changes will improve consumer awareness of its ethical trading principles and reverse a decline in membership and market share.
It wants to substantially increase membership from 600,000 to four million by 2010.
London agency Pentagram is understood to have provided some consultancy services relating to the rebrand but the bulk of the work was carried out in-house said the company.
Head of brand management Kelvin Collins told How Do: “The most important part is to demonstrate that the Co-operative’s financial services are an integral part of the bigger group.
Rochdale Pioneers
“The synergy between all the activities within the group will become ever closer.
“This is a substantial reappraisal of the business to show that it is modern, relevant and can build on its strong ethical stance.”
The Co-op was set up in 1863 to represent traders mainly in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
But its roots go back to the Rochdale Pioneers of 1844, whose founding tenets included the idea of sharing profits according to purchases.
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