I’m not sure how many French consumers know that LU is (very) shorthand for Lefèvre-Utile, a brand with an extremely long and colourful heritage.
In design terms it has long been a simple endorsement of an army of sub-brands, many far more famous than their ‘mother’. But no longer: In the face of an even bigger army of own-label copies, LU has decided to flex its muscles and reverse the brand architecture. This will give advertising a chance to switch the emotional messaging to the mother brand, providing an efficient way to kill several birds with one stone (or at least give them a nasty punch on the beak). As for the packaging, some careful thought on how to look a bit less monolithic is clearly required.