A leading brand expert has claimed that despite Premier Foods’ vast investment in marketing its Hovis brand as a British product, it may not have the same impact as existing successful campaigns.

Premier has put significant investment behind Hovis, one of its eight ’power brands’, in recent months, including new British-themed packaging and a £1m TV advertising campaign, to launch today (10 February), which will reintroduce its existing ’Go on Lad’ concept. The ad will feature a young boy’s journey through recent history focusing on British life and iconic events, such as the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Don Williams, chief executive of branding and design consultancy Pi Global, told British Baker: "Anything Hovis can do to reinforce its credentials as a cherished piece of British heritage can only be positive. As a piece of holistic brand communication, Hovis was a basket case until a few years ago, when the core emotion was reintroduced into advertising and packaging design was turned into something that had the architecture and flexibility to build the brand into the future.

"However, even though this seems to be part of a larger campaign focused on the ’British wheat’ message, the heavily edited version which incidentally feels like a trailer for the 2008 ad has a pace which results in a bit of a blur. Hence it has nowhere near the impact of the original."

Premier Foods’ investment in new packaging and marketing for the Hovis brand is designed to highlight it as the only major national bread brand that uses 100% British wheat and no artificial preservatives.