Bonfire has been appointed by Argos to develop their Chad Valley brand. The project is the first in a series of developments for Argos following a

Chad Valley brand development

number of recent brand acquisitions.

Chad Valley was one of the UK’s leading toymakers throughout the 20th century. The brand’s roots are in a Birmingham based printing business established by Anthony Bunn Johnson in the early 19th century. Under the management of subsequent generations the company moved to the suburb of Harborne, in the valley of a stream called the Chad, from where the brand takes its name.

Chad Valley was taken over by Palitoy in 1978 and later bought by Woolworths, ten years later. Home Retail Group, the parent company of retailers Argos and Homebase, then purchased the brand for £5 million from Woolworths when it finally closed its high street doors in January 2009.

An interim phase has been completed with the production of a series of themed background illustrations for catalogue 73 in January 2010 and is to be followed by a full brand review and development in the New Year.

The project will cover a broad set of style guides, packaging and other promotional activity, and is aiming to be launched in June 2010 in time for catalogue 74.

Stephen Judge MA FCSD, Strategic Development Director at Bonfire says ‘Chad Valley is a historic children’s brand and we are proud to be part of this project. I can’t think of a more exciting way to enter our 10th year.’

Andrew Turner, Marketing Manager for Argos owned brands, adds ‘Having been recently appointed to manage a number of the recently acquired non-Argos brands, I approached Bonfire to help with the first phase development of the Chad Valley branding – to help develop and position Chad Valley in the 2010 spring/summer catalogue as a brand (although Argos-owned) in its own right. This initial work will be followed by a full brand review.

Bonfire created a range of wonderful background illustrations for the various age and product categories to very tight deadlines and I look forward to working with them further. Their expertise, approach and in-house illustration capabilities made them the perfect partner for this fun and lively brand.’

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Bonfire news, Business development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.