Signum: Never Count Out a Good Brand

16 Jun 2020

In 1994, the Swedish Co-operative Union, KF/Konsum, decided to launch a new private label for their premium segment consumables. They already had the low-price segment brand Blåvitt (Bluewhite).

Skriptor Zigila were engaged in the project and created the name Signum. With design from the renowned Brindfors agency, the Signum brand soon became a success. Juice, marmalade, bacon, chocolate, frozen vegetables, ready meals, coffee, soft drinks: all kinds of consumables were sold under the Signum umbrella. And in our office in Stockholm, we still keep an empty package of Signum breakfast cereals.

Imagine our surprise when in 2004 the Signum brand was suddenly being replaced by the new Coop-brand. At the same time, the low-end Blåvitt brand was replaced by Coop X-tra, all of this being part of a new, pan-Nordic branding strategy.

Today, 15 years later, we are in for the next surprise: ”Coop recalls medium-strong beer of the Signum brand – too high alcohol content!” According to the announcement, cans of Signum medium-strong beer, 2.8%, containing too much alcohol had been sold in the Coop stores, and customers were asked to return them for repayment.

Apart from smiling at the idea of people queueing up to return drinks containing too much alcohol, we were quite happy to see that Signum was back as a beer brand: “The classic Signum brand is revived at Coop. Now as a beer, brewed with care and with a character and pleasant taste of malt and a light bitterness of hop. A very affordable and good beer, quite simply” (from Coop’s website).

Never count out a good brand!

Our experience in this business is one of our strongest assets. Since the 80’s and we are not planning on stopping any time soon.