Youngor Ad in Shanghai (Why AWTA logo)

Straight Talk February 4th 2009

Youngor - China

In an edition of Straight Talk dated January 14th I included a photo of a very large billboard in a department store in Shanghai and made comment about the use of the word wrinkle and asked why the AWTA and AWI logos had be used instead if some reference to Australian wool.

Ben Lyons of the AWI Shanghai office has kindly provided the following explanation and we appreciate his feedback

"In regards the Youngor picture – yes it is an AWTA logo and this was owing to Youngor being one of the first to carry out a full traceability story (via the Verification of Australian Merino). At that stage there was no Woolmark/AWI business and Youngor requested something to symbolize the traceability story. They asked for the AWTA logo as they had seen it on the Verification letterhead. This was in 2006 before the merger with AWS had taken place. Youngor also decided to have the AWI logo there.

The decision on the ‘Wrinkle’ focus was Youngor’s – this is because they saw it as a value add to sell their suits in their market which they know best, i.e. a commercial decision. AWI worked with Youngor initially on ‘Merino Travel’ imagery, but they chose to run on the consumer benefit of anti wrinkle which has legs in China particularly, it must because they have sold 200,000 plus suits.

To summarise: the product is Youngor’s, the advertising spend is Youngor, and the consumer target is Youngor. Obviously their number 1 priority is not promoting Australian Merino wool, they are selling their product. They are however using 100% Australian merino wool as they used our verification system – an add on to what they do. It’s called b2b marketing and it moves volume".

Thanks Ben. Interesting to see that some customers are supporting VAM (Verifiable Australian Merino). A system that I've always believed was fundamentally flawed.

As always, comments welcome.