New-look Woolworths finds fresh is still best

Speaking at the launch of a new brand - a stylised W - the general manager for marketing, Luke Dunkerley, said the supermarket's brand was "in good health" and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry demonstrated that there was healthy competition in the $70 billion-a-year grocery market, even if the commentary about it failed to reflect that.

"I don't think it's going to show much change at all," he said. "I'd love to say that they [shoppers] did pick up on the inquiry's findings that it failed to find the retailers were causing inflation . and that it found workable competition. We were thrilled that [the ACCC] found what we believed to be the case."

He believed that because there was not "a sensational finding" it was unlikely to affect shopper habits but he acknowledged that it might have impacted on "people's view of what good value is".

But he was not planning any reactive marketing as a result and said the company would not change its print and poster campaign, which proclaims it to be Australia's choice for value, citing research by Roy Morgan.

Last week's launch of the logo will give Woolworths the opportunity to refresh the 20-year-old "Fresh food people" tagline.

Changing it was never on the cards, the new logo's designer, Hans Hulsbosch, of Hulsbosch Communications, said. "We looked at many different countries and we found that line to be the best in the world," Mr Hulsbosch said. The logo will give Woolworths greater flexibility to use on products and in stores and will be implemented over the next two years. Mr Hulsbosch said he wanted a logo that would represent the idea of "fresh". But he added: "It is not an apple. It is an icon."

The new logo would be instantly recognisable as Woolworths and be associated with the word fresh "within a short time", Mr Dunkerley said.

He said it made sense to concentrate on this area as shoppers judged his company first and foremost on its performance in fresh food.

"A supermarket that can have this positioning and live up to it is excelling in an area the customer needs them to excel in . to be a supermarket brand focused on fresh food and have a point in difference in that is going to be the one that they will lean towards," he said.

He said people did not like the "corporate brand" as much as he would prefer - corporate marketing falls under his responsibility. "At the store level we do research and we are overwhelmed at how well our brand is received . we can get a bit in a knot about the academic question of the corporate entity versus the store they shop in."