Month: November 2020

Four Whoppers and an Exclamation Mark

/ Paul Christopher Walton / Leave a comment

From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: 1994

In February 1994 a British film that wasn’t called True Love and Near Misses but could have been, received its premiere at the Sundance Festival and was a surprise hit. The writer described it as “a romantic film about love and friendship that swims in a sea of jokes.” A couple of weeks later in Stanford where apparently the wind of freedom blows, what the founders initially called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web went through a dramatic rebrand and attempted to hijack a punctuation mark. Meanwhile in London, Jeremy and Pattie had a little boy who will brought up by his mum in Stratford – Stratford, Ontario.

In this vintage year of new relationships and linkups, China will connect to the Internet, Great Britain will re-connect to mainland Europe, and in Seattle, a start-up called Cadabra, was on the lookout for “talented, motivated, intense and interesting co-workers.” Thus was the world warned, but perhaps we were all just too distracted by the launch in Tokyo of the SCDH-1000 and the consequent likelihood of imminent repetitive strain injury.

1994 was indeed the year Hugh Grant gave us that brilliant foppish turn in Four Weddings and a Funeral; Yahoo! introduced us to backronyms (Yet Another Hierarchy Organised Oracle); Jeff Bezos went on a four-day course in book selling and then decided Amazon was a better name for his everything store; and Sony PlayStation told us “Live in Your World but Play in Ours” and sold 100m units. I do not know if Justin Bieber had a PlayStation, a Nintendo or an Xbox, but one thing I do know is that you can buy all of brands featured in this post on Amazon’s website, including Justin Bieber’s Girlfriend Eau de Parfum at £13.19, but sadly not currently a PlayStation 5.

1994 Essential background listening: Oasis Definitely Maybe

The Saucy Side of Thanksgiving

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The Brand Historian’s Timeline : 1912

Culinary products and the cooking habits they reinforce, tell us much about a nation’s history and culture. Nowhere is this truer than in the United States where successive waves of immigrants have made the cooking and eating landscape so diverse and remarkable. Today, a visit to the grocery store is like a geological time trip where it is possible to discern the sedimentary effects of successive waves of immigration.

By tradition, it all starts in 1621 with the first Thanksgiving Dinner, when the Pilgrim colonists entertained their Native American guests to a huge feast. Whilst the Puritans were not big at celebrating Christmas (remember Cromwell banned dancing and closed the theatres too), they certainly made up with it with a three-day November protein-fest featuring a whole gallimaufry of seafood and game, possibly including Wild Turkey. 

The moment cranberry sauce was served for the first time at Thanksgiving is lost in the mists of Dennis, but by 1796, Amelia Simmons’ first American cookbook included a recipe for it, and by 1816, Cape Cod’s swampy wastelands were being drained so that largescale commercial cranberry bogs could be developed. Farmers had discovered a good wind blowing sand over the vines helped promote vigorous growth. By 1864, Cranberry Sauce was such an important adjunct to a Yankee Thanksgiving dinner that General Grant laying siege to Petersburg, Va. ordered that his troops be supplied with tons of cranberries so they could celebrate the holiday in the appropriate way before resuming their pummelling of the Rebs.

From the nineteenth century onwards many popular culinary ingredients were being industrialised and in 1912, Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce was introduced by a Plymouth bog owner called Marcus L. Urann who, as the cranberry season is a very short, had built a cannery to make the most of his and his farmer chums’ production. Quite the savvy entrepreneur, he also ‘borrowed’ the brand name from a West Coast fish business but added the breaking ocean wave and the vine. He died in 1963 having built one of the most popular superfoods. The jury is still out on his 1941 jellied cranberry log though.

The Brand Historian wishes all his American friends Happy Holidays and proposes for your Thanksgiving Dinner cornucopia the following treats:

1940 Butterball Turkey 

1949 Sara Lee Cheese Cake

1958 Green Giant Co. Green Beans

1972 Stove Top Stuffing

Suggested Playlist: Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1912)

The Technical Secrets of Conspicuous Consumption?

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With the help of Duran Duran

The Brand Historian’s Timeline: 1982

Dig out your legwarmers and jumpsuit, find that Duran Duran CD, it’s time to go back to the decade that gave us yuppies, golden hellos and golden parachutes and actually worshipped conspicuous consumption. Hungary like a wolf? Take a close look at two confectionery hits which not only exemplified the zeitgeist but were also superb examples of engineering ingenuity.

Viennetta, the ice cream log with the frilly extrinsics made its debut in 1982, and soon its last slice became something to fight over at many a teatime. With that Mitteleuropan name that is so easy to misspell, Viennetta is a feast of contrasts: an ice cream dessert with a patisserie gene; or a combination of multi-layered extruded ice cream shaped cleverly into rippling waves with a sprinkling of chocolate, all brilliantly designed by Kevin Hillman and Ian Butcher of Wall’s. Afficionados will recall the delicious change in texture as the ice cream melts and the chocolate crackles in the mouth. My German friends refer to it as knispernlust which I have always felt an appropriately wicked description.

Ferrero Rocher is another technical masterpiece that was launched in 1982. Building on his father’s success with some of the plentiful raw materials available in the Piedmont, Michele Ferrero created individual indulgent mouthfuls he called Rochers (inspired by the shrine at Lourdes), consisting of hazelnut, wafer and chocolate deliciousness, enrobed in gold foil and glammed-up packaging to be welcomed without hesitation at all the smartest parties. It became a global hit and along with Tic Tac, Kinder and Mon Cheri, helped make Michele the richest man in Italy.

In an age of easy line extension, It is interesting to observe that both these cases show the power of genuine product/technical innovation, and they are also an object lesson in how tremendous value can be created by applying technical ingenuity to lower cost materials – such air and compound chocolate in the case of Viennetta, and hazelnut paste in the case of Ferrero Rocher.

The Riddle of the Widow

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From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: 1810

One of the greatest triumphs of branding and innovation against the odds took place amidst the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars. The protagonist was a woman born Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin but better known to us all as La Veuve Clicquot. Nicole was only 27 when her husband died, leaving her, a young daughter and a hodgepodge of failing family business interests that had been jointly managed with his father, Philippe Clicquot. At the time, the code Napoleon expressly forbade women the right to vote, to earn money, or to be economically active without the consent of their husband or father. An exception was made for widows, and Nicole persuaded her father-in-law to let her have a go at running the business.

Like some Bonaparte-meets-Jane Austen themed episode of The Apprentice, she had to overcome various challenges before with the help of a vigneron mentor, she finally won the trust of the family. With the rigour of a McKinsey hotshot, she completed a portfolio analysis and decided to focus the firm on a single, growing business: sparkling wine. In 1810, just as the Emperor was divorcing Josephine, Nicole at last launched her own champagne house: Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, and in the space of the next twenty years showed herself to be a brand manager of genius. She innovated in process – developing the riddling rack which helped clarify the sediment in bottles. She innovated in positioning: launching the first vintage champagne in 1810. She innovated in product, creating the first blended rosé champagne in1818. But perhaps her greatest coup de théâtre was to break the naval blockades in Europe and get her extra sweet bottles of fizz into the hands of the Russians who lapped the stuff up, even if it did come from Bonaparte’s France. According to the Czar’s brother, Veuve Clicquot was the only thing to drink. 

La Grande Dame enjoyed a long retirement, having built one of the most successful booze brands by case sales and having played a decisive role in establishing Champagne as a truly global (and luxurious) habit. Veuve Clicquot, of course, was the fizz of Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca, and the preferred choice for Commander Bond and at least one of my favourite clients – you know who you are….

There’s more brand histories at strategic-leaps.com

Innovation or Outavation?

/ Paul Christopher Walton / 1 Comment

From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: 1974

The 1970s get a bad press: brown wallpaper, bad haircuts and economic hardship but such a milieu made fertile ground for innovation, especially in consumer products, and many of these featured taking a product category and then either adding something or taking something away. In 1974, Baileys Irish Cream was whisked up by combining two ingredients (cream and whiskey) plentifully available to Grand Metropolitan who owned a dairy and distilleries, crafting a brand skin that made the product look like it had been around for years, and creating a whole new category of drinks. And the real commercial coup de main was to charge full liqueur prices for a bottle that contained significantly less alcohol, thus creating a whopping margin for brand building and other stuff. Baileys became a billion schooner phenomenon and invented a whole new series of drinking occasions, including one for an aunt of mine who liked to enjoy a glass while doing the ironing.

Also launched in the UK this year was Homepride Cook-in-Sauces, the first of a wave of new culinary products which helped the consumer to bring the adventurous flavours of (what was called at the time) ethnic foods to the dinner table. A range of recipe sauces in cans including Red Wine, Curry, Barbecue and Chilli Con Carne were launched using Fred, a reassuring little flour grader as the QC supervisor on pack and in the ad. They were a smash and only because the consumer had completely rejected Homepride’s first attempt, which had actually combined recipe sauces with pieces of meat. Consumers said, “Keep your chicken and beef, Spillers, give us the sauces, and we’ll do the rest.” Homepride CIS was a great marketing success and it reminds us to always focus on what the consumer values most. In an age before Deliveroo and Uber Eats, it was brands like Homepride which made dinner convenient, interesting and tasty and perhaps even brightened up the wallpaper.

(A small personal footnote: fans of Bluff Your Way in Marketing, co-written with Dr Graham Harding and still available on Amazon, will know that The Brand Historian’s Mastermind specialist subject would be the history of the cooking sauces market, 1974 to the present day…)

There’s more brand histories at strategic-leaps.com

Philadelphia : La crème de la creme ?

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From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: 1880

Philadelphia has been much in the news in the last few days, not the least because its democratic voters have opened Joe Biden’s path to the White House. Perception and reality have always been contrasting notions in politics, and the same is true in the world of branding.

Exactly 140 years ago in 1880, Philadelphia gave its name to a type of cheese which has since become the essential schmear on many a bagel: Philadelphia.

But this global cheese icon was actually manufactured in up-state New York by the Empire Cheese Company of South Edmeston, who modified and industrialised a recipe which had originated in the dairy heartlands of medieval Normandy. 

Neufchâtel-en-Bray is a small town little where little has happened apart from the modest fame that has come to the town via the soft, crumbly cheese which bears its name.

Popular in nineteenth century America, local farmers started to produce local examples of Neufchâtel and one of these, William A Lawrence made a particularly rich version by adding dollops of cream. His recipe became very popular and it was Lawrence’s recipe which was launched under the Philadelphia label in 1880 in a distinctive rectangular package.

But why Philadelphia I hear you ask? The simple answer was probably to leverage the great reputation of the artisan dairymen like D. Basset & Co who lived in the vicinity of Philly. We might call this branding ruse the strategy of image hommage.

Tonight,we give hommage to Philadelphia.

There’s more brand histories at strategic-leaps.com

1955: A Branding milestone?

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From the Brand Historian’s Timeline

Was this a great milestone year in branding history because it was the year that HAJ Scott brought to market his great new product idea, the fishfinger? (Under the Birdseye banner of course – amazing to think that the Captain really is a pensioner now.)

Or was it because this was the year the first electronics item sporting the Sony label was sold in Japan? (It was a transistor radio, the TR55.)

Or what how about the launch of ITV, the UK’s first commercial TV channel which has built so many household names? (The opening night was Associated Rediffusion’s and the first ad was for Gibbs SR, the Unilever dentifrice with the chloroform blast.)

But perhaps it was because 1955 also saw the birth of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the colossi who with Microsoft and Apple have created the worlds’ most ubiquitous and powerful branding empires.

Oh, and before I forget, and in the interests of full disclosure – it was also the year the Brand Historian was born. Today’s the day I enter that new demographic: 65 plus. Where’s that mug of Horlicks?  #branding #brand #marketing #history

There’s more brand histories at strategic-leaps.com