City AM quotes Charlotte Duly on Tesco’s Clubcard rebrand after losing battle with Lidl

Tesco has begun a £7m rebrand of its Clubcard Prices logo after losing a trademark battle against rival supermarket giant Lidl last month and has revealed the design of its new logo via the app.

Charlotte Duly, Head of Brand Protection, comments for City AM:

Tesco has retained the yellow and blue colour scheme, with blue having formed part of Tesco’s corporate livery for some time.  However, gone is the blue square superimposed with a yellow circle, instead there is a blue square next to a yellow rectangle, with the corners of each rounded as if they form one larger rectangle.

It is perhaps no surprise that Tesco has looked to retain use of their blue, and the new Clubcard Price logo is very different to their previous branding and far enough away to avoid the transfer of image Lidl complained of in the court proceedings.

With Tesco’s head of legal estimating that the cost of replacing all the Clubcard Price signs would be more than £7m, this demonstrates just how expensive a rebrand can be when it needs to be undertaken on a significant scale.

There has been much commentary in the media about Lidl and other discount supermarkets sailing close to the wind when selecting their own brand names and packaging, and being renowned for only changing designs as much as they absolutely have to when they are challenged by third parties. It will be interesting to see if, having been on the other side of the fence against Tesco, Lidl alter their own tactics.

Read the full piece in City AM here.