Love, Afare's branding captures experience of sharing all things delicious, says JUMBO

Love, Afare is JUMBO Group’s latest attempt at breaking into the consumer products scene and is a play on the word “affair”. Speaking to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Nafe Tong, creative partner at Ad.WRIGHT Communications which worked with JUMBO for the brand launch, explained that Love, Afare literally means “passionate about a spread of food” and consumers will come to see the brand as a way to indulge in their love affair with local food.

JUMBO’s brand promise is to be the creator and ambassador of Singapore’s best taste and moments for a community that loves life, loves food and loves to share. These elements are boldly reflected in the logo through the words 爱 (loving), 食 (savouring), 录 (sharing), which seek to encapsulate the experience of sharing all things delicious. They include a warm bowl of freshly prepared food and cutlery. Tong explained that a heart in the logo aptly represents the love, affection and passion towards the finer things in life, the signature dishes and flavours specially created by JUMBO for discerning food lovers and the act of capturing treasured moments and sharing them with family and friends.

Love, Afare’s overall look and feel signifies the eagerness to capture moments and sharing them with consumers. JUMBO’s executive director and group CEO, Ang Kiam Meng, explained that it will be active on social media via proprietary content and user generated content. He added that user generated content represents the heart of the brand, having lovers of the brand propagate the love.

Love, Afare aims to offer customers a wide selection of curated packaged food products and lifestyle products, including JUMBO's famous sauces and mementos of Singapore. The products will be sold across Singapore and China which are JUMBO’s top two markets currently. Being JUMBO’s home ground, Singapore was naturally the top priority launch market. Meanwhile, Ang said China is its second-largest market and houses over nine of its outlets across the country, and overseas markets with the longest history. Hence, this makes JUMBO a familiar name to many consumers in the market.

“The Chinese community has always been a strong supporter of our brand, with a large pool of fans sharing the same ideology as our brand, 爱 (loving), 食 (savouring), 录 (sharing), gives us great confidence that we will be able to break through into this market, which will lay a strong foundation into our movement further across the globe,” Ang explained.

Love, Afare has been onboarded onto major eCommerce marketplaces to raise awareness. “We are also enthusiastic about collaborating with other like-minded brands as well as upstream and downstream partners to offer bundle products and value deals to our customers,” he added.

At the same time, its marketing and PR efforts comprise local mainstream media, key opinion leaders and social media influencers. JUMBO’s aim is to continuously share its products and recipes to inspire consumers to prepare delectable dishes for their loved ones. This also represents Love, Afare’s brand DNA, which is to share with consumers its love for the best authentic taste and mementos representing Singapore.

JUMBO’s new brand is also part of the Made with Passion initiative that the Singapore government developed last year to promote local lifestyle brands and the stories behind them. Under this initiative, the brand mark will be placed on Love, Afare products. It is also working closely with organisations such as the Singapore Tourism Board and Enterprise Singapore to introduce the brand and its products to consumers worldwide.

Aside from Singapore and China, JUMBO plans to bring Love, Afare to other countries with existing JUMBO outlets including Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and South Korea.

In 2019, JUMBO was part of Enterprise Singapore’s two and a half year Scale-up SG programme in 2019, alongside 25 local companies such as 4Fingers, Koufu, SK Jewellery, EtonHouse among others. Ang explained that venturing into a new line of products, to increase and diversify revenue streams is one of the key objectives of the Scale-Up programme, so is increasing its overseas presence. This is both fulfilled by the relaunching of its retail brand and also the expansion of the FMCG product range. 

“Retail products have always an area that the Group wanted to develop further, as we see it as a great way to reach out to a much wider audience beyond the brick and mortar F&B business, and to be able to bring our signature tastes and flavours beyond borders. Ironically, the COVID situation further proved this belief and accelerated the brand’s development,” Ang explained.

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