Brand Historian

The Brand Historian: Into the deep freeze

/ Paul Christopher Walton / 1 Comment

 Discovering the new world of frozen foods

The brand historian is as old as the fish finger: the convenience miracle of the modern age will always hold a special place in my heart, not least because creating new frozen foods helped make my fortune

That story began with Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956), an out and out Yankee and a curious amalgam of explorer and inventor, tinkerer and entrepreneur. It was in the frozen landscape of Labrador that Clarence, with his wife Eleanor, who fortunately thrived on roughing it, conducted many experiments into fast-freezing. These proved more successful than Francis Bacon’s ill-fated attempt with chicken 300 years before. Birds Eye, known to his friends as Bob, was fascinated by the relationship between time, temperature and the type of food he was putting through his prototype freezer tunnel. He was convinced that fast-frozen food would disrupt existing food preservation systems like canning and make him rich.

Soon armed with a goodly number of patents, his frozen fish start-up based in Gloucester, Mass. was acquired by General Foods and before long and with their investment, the Birds Eye brand was creating a whole new area in the supermarket. This new category consisted both of existing products, now conveniently frozen (for example, garden peas) and exciting new-to-the-world products like breaded fish sticks.

Other competitors were soon drawn to this fast-growing market. To accompany the rise of TV, and to hold our attention while viewing, Swanson launched a range of frozen TV Dinners which consisted of an entrée with appropriate sides laid out in the now familiar aluminium multi-compartment tray. Boil-in-the-bag was another innovative format that was pioneered in frozen foods. In 1970, Birds Eye announced the arrival of its Sliced Roast Beef in Gravy with an advert that informed us that the plastic bag ‘seals up the flavour’ and also saves on washing-up. Blue Peter’s John Noakes was an enthusiastic disciple who demonstrated this with the aid of a loaf of sliced white bread.

The oil crisis of 1973 and the economic recession which followed saw food price inflation reach 19% p.a. and made the home freezer the must-have-money-saving consumer durable of the day. Soon freezer centres such as Bejam started to appear on the High Street with their rows of chest freezers like white coffins and crammed with fruit and vegetables and meat including the proverbial ‘half a pig’. With many more women becoming economically active, the convenience of frozen foods became a major selling point. June Whitfield and her Pinocchio inspired nose told us that the Birds Eye Chicken Pie would ‘make a dishonest woman of you.’

The rise of fast food also played a big part in the growth of frozen food. The arrival of McDonalds in 1974 provided a powerful source of inspiration to the likes of McCain, Findus and Birds Eye who all launched distinctive big-selling new lines like Oven Ready Chips, French Bread Pizza and Potato Waffles. The great popularity of the hamburger generated considerable interest and research into new processing technologies with the aim of improving the eating quality of processed meat products. The Auf Wiedersehen, Pet lads featured in the advert singing in the back of their white van hoped it would be chips that would accompany their Birds Eye Steakhouse Grills.

Changing consumer lifestyles provided other opportunities for new products. Lean Cuisine was highly successful at bringing recipe sexiness and health and applying it to the humble ready meal.

But at the beginning of the Millennium, the long run of good years began to come to an end: this was due to strong competition from chilled foods now aggressively marketed by the supermarkets, and increased media and consumer concern about the nutritional quality of frozen convenience foods, which were – at least semiotically speaking  – beginning to show their age. A mini ice age for frozen foods had arrived.

But the spirit of Bob Birdseye is strong, and after a few quiet years, frozen food has been successfully revitalised and is growing again, and the face of its iconic Captain Birdseye/Findus/Iglo – depending where in Europe you live – is smiling once more. We have rediscovered our love for fish fingers and garden peas, Chicken Chargrills, and exactly on trend perhaps, also for Green Cuisine, the latest (and meat free) range from Birds Eye.

I am sure that Clarence would be egging us on- just like his Huskies – to give it a go.

 

Paul Christopher Walton

The Brand Historian:
Forays into the annals and archives of the brands we grew up with.

The Modern History of the Beer Label: The Baker Street Connection

/ Paul Christopher Walton / 1 Comment

Premium Ale Packaging from Marks and Spencer – comparing vintages from 1983 and 2019.

The Brand Historian has long been a student of retailer beer packaging and this comparison show how far retailer brands in general have progressed in their understanding of ale codes.

One of the biggest challenges faced by Marks in particular over the years was avoiding too many wine references and cues in their beer packaging designs. This Norfolk Bitter pack is pretty good and even better, the beer, brewed by Woodforde’s was excellent with my chicken casserole.

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Food and the Power of Place

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An A to Z of food and food brands

A Arbroath Smokies, Aberdeen Angus, Amalfi Lemons, Asti Spumante

B Bakewell Tart, Black Forest Gateaux, Baked Alaska, Buffalo Wings

C Cornish Pasties

D Dublin Bay Prawns, Dundee Cake

E Eccles Cakes

F Frankfurter

G Gouda

H Hildon Water

I Idaho Red

J Jersey Royals, Jaffa Cakes, Jarlsberg

K Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kendal Mint Cake, Key Lime, Chicken Kiev

L Lancashire Hot Pot

M Melton Mowbray Pie, Madras Curry

N New England Chowder, Salade Niçoise

O Oxford Blue

P Parma Ham, Pilsner, Philadelphia Cheesecake

Q Quiche Lorraine

R Roquefort

S Sisteron Lamb, Sancerre

T Turkish Delight

U Ulster Fry

V Vougeot

W Wensleydale

X Xeres

Y Yorkshire Pudding

Z Zamarano

Defining the year? Words heard in 2018

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strategic leaps new words_banner

A Accidial When your partner calls you from the pub without intending to. Can end in divorce apparently

B Bingeable Content so toothsome you want to consume it all in one sitting

C Contenvy Any new stuff you come across especially from a rival that you wish you’d thought of first

D Data lake Raw liquid data, dark and unstructured and unfathomable

E Ethereum A brand of crypto-currency distributed by blockchain

F Fake reviews All those 5 Star hotel and restaurant reviews you see online

G Gammon An angry, right-leaning reactionary male, usually middle aged

H Haptics Communication via touch – how my Apple watch reminds me to stand up

I Incel Someone who wants to initiate a sexual/romantic relationship but is unable to

J Jugaad Resourceful innovation usually done by winging it in challenging conditions with the help of Blue Tack and Meccano

K Kombucha Fermented tea for digestive health. ‘It’s tea, Jim but not as we know it.’

L Latinx or Latinxs Gender neutral Latino or Latina

M Mansplaining Condescending and often unsolicited male explanation mode

N Nomophobia The mortal dread of being without your mobile or being temporarily unable to operate it

O Overshare Tendency to reveal excessive personal detail in social media: warts and all.

P Pivot How to make a U-turn sound strategically clever

Q Quidnunc The Office gossip with a college degree

R Rando Unknown person, suspicious and engaging in socially dodgy behaviour

S Single-Use The Blue Planet’s big plastic villain

T Transitional Outerwear Your new Autumn coat

U Unicorn Startup company valued at $1 billion. Statistically rare but there are already 130 or more in China

V Vuca The Spirit of the age: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous

W Wordies People who love words – Are Susie Dent  and Gyles Brandreth Rowdies and weirdos? (Anagram)

X XED Cross elasticity of demand. The joys of economics. Wired headphones sales decline because the iPhone no longer has an audio jack but sales of audio jack adapters grow strongly as a consequence

Y Youthquake Ohhhhh, Jeremy Corbyn! Demographic morphology

Z Zuke Zucchini or courgette with attitude and an Instagram page

 

 

 

A Small Neological Diversion

/ Paul Christopher Walton / 2 Comments

strategic leaps new words_final

Language is constantly evolving, and new words are the flotsam and jetsam on the oceans of social and technological trends.

But totally new words are rare because we like to use old ones – wholly or in part – to make the strange seem a little more familiar. This was especially true of 2018 – a vintage year for new and new-old words.

But how many of these words on the poster below do you really know?* and what others should be on the list? – it would be great to hear your nominations….

Paul and The Walton Street Band

*For those looking for answers, visit http://www.strategic-leaps.com on Christmas Eve when we’ll post a few answers

So, are we all officers now?

/ Paul Christopher Walton / 2 Comments

coronets-of-british-nobility

Marketing Misc

An A to Z of Modern Marketing

O is for Officer

 

Marketing has not escaped the great inflation of titles that is such a characteristic of the modern business world. Far from it, marketeers have been in the avant-garde of such tactics for gentrification.

In the 1960s, as marketing became the hot new function (remember even then customers were big data), ‘marketing manager’ was a title that said it all. But as the onward charge of the brand stormtroopers described by Hugh Davidson in OffensiveMarketing became  irresistible, the resultant demand for career progression soon created a whole new hierarchy of titles: senior marketing manager, category marketing manager, trade marketing manager, marketing controller, head of strategic marketing and so on.

Before you could say ‘matrix’, the more successful branding folk were getting appointed to the board as marketing directors, often edge-ing out old-school sales directors: the science of fact-based demand management trumping the soft art of the trade marketing lunch.

This phenomenon is not particularly new of course. In the Middle Ages, harassed and/or hard-up kings of England found inventing new titles a convenient way of managing talent in challenging times. The old English matiness of Knight, Baron, Earl was supplemented in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the more continental and hence racy titles of Baronet, Viscount, Marquis and Duke.

We are still doing the same 500 years later. As we entered the new millennium, organisational bigwigs were crowned CEOs – Chief Executive Officers. The use of the word officer in this context was an innovation and an interesting one at that. Officers as opposed to other ranks, perhaps? Officeholders and functionaries; bureaucrats and dignitaries – these are the synonyms Susie Dent might discover for the word in her Oxford Dictionary corner.

Predictably, the Officeritismax virus began to spread rapidly through corporations. As ever, marketeers showed the least resistance and suddenly there was an epidemic of Chief Marketing Officers. But it didn’t stop there, and soon all other functional Grands Fromages in their C-Suite eyries wanted to get in on the act. Next minute, learned business magazines were telling us that the ‘CMO- CTO- CFO partnership’ is a key success factor. The virus is still virulent. We now have Chief Demand Officers, Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Customer Officers and even Chief Experience Officers

In the 1960s, just as marketing was diffusing through UK businesses, the British historian Lawrence Stone was writing about the counterproductive effects of title inflation in the seventeenth century and its negative impact on respect for the management régimes of the day, something he argued which certainly contributed to the outbreak of the English Civil war: “The greater the wealth and more even its distribution in a given society,” he observed “the emptier become titles of personal distinction, but the more they multiply and are striven for.” He called this Tawney’s Law. Those of us who care about marketing should remember Tawney’s Law and think carefully before we launch the next squad of marketing officers onto an increasingly sceptical world. We should recall that the title of my favourite episode of Minder featuring George Cole as the roguish Arthur Daley, was called An Officer and a Car Salesman.

The Early History of Quorn

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How The Value Engineers helped bring the first new food to the world since yoghurt

Breakthroughs are notoriously difficult to bring to market, especially when they involve something simultaneously as basic and yet as culturally significant as food.

But such was the challenge The Value Engineers inherited when it was approached in the early 1980s by a small science start-up in High Wycombe that was funded by two food industry giants: RHM and ICI.

The story had begun 20 years earlier when Lord Rank, convinced that the world was hurtling into a crisis of food supply, tasked his Ph.D.’s with the search for alternative and more nutritionally balanced sources of protein.

Having scoured five continents, it was perhaps ironic that they discovered exactly what they were looking for in a field in Marlow, not very far from their lab in High Wycombe.

It was a tiny plant and because of its microscopic size, they decided to call it myco-protein, and they spent the next 20 years researching its properties and assessing its suitability as a novel food. Myco-protein, when grown and harvested, has the bite and fibrosity of meat but without any of the negative nutritional complications that were becoming the subject of increasing health concerns in the 1980s. It was also an exceptional carrier of flavour. This made myco-protein a first-rate choice as an alternative to meat, especially beef.

After extensive consumer clinical trials, followed by food standards clearance and product development that included partnering with some of the U.K.’s biggest names, myco-protein was soon doing the rounds of the food trade and NPD conferences, describing itself as a Tomorrow’s World next big thing.

If only it was all that easy. Following on from the the disastrous failure of new smoking materials in the 1970s and the frankly indifferent success of soya, the trade proved to be a little sceptical of this new test-tube food. It appeared to be another one of those technologies in search of a market.

By 1983, and having already invested tens of millions of pounds, the main board of RHM showed signs of losing patience. Accordingly, and with a slight air of double or quits, they formed a joint-venture with the bio products division of ICI. Its goal was to build a pilot plant with a small capacity to prove (or otherwise) the existence of real consumer demand for myco-protein. A small executive team was formed to run a budget, make investment decisions and give myco-protein its final commercial chance.

At this point, the TVE founder partners were approached and were asked to pitch for some consultancy against the following essay question:

‘We have a new exciting food technology and a development budget of £1 million. What would you do with the money?’

In the somewhat Spartan accommodation of the Nissen hut where the start-up was based, we told the CEO that the two most important things to sort immediately were to acquire a good quality overhead projector and the best filter coffee machine money could buy, because in order to light the blue touch paper, they were going to be doing a lot late nights and a lot of presentations…

Thus, began the highly successful collaboration between The Value Engineers and what became known as Marlow Foods, together building the brand we all know today as Quorn. Incidentally, Quorn was originally going to be called Origen, but because of complex global naming and legal issues, it was decided to use an existing RHM asset, a regional sauce brand called Quorn, which was then only on sale in the Midlands.

Over the following 10 years Quorn and The Value Engineers grew and grew together.

TVE, acting as Marlow Foods’ primary marketing partner, provided strategic advice on positioning the basic raw material (“A distant relative of the mushroom family…the right food at the right time“), the identification of priority customer segments (J.Sainsbury, Unilever), the development of priority products (Supremes, pieces, sausages minced and even ice cream), all with the development of the appropriate brand architecture and personality.

Following Quorn’s successful launch in the UK in 1985, TVE went on to work with Marlow Foods on product launches in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and created the innovation roadmap that paved the way for Quorn’s subsequent global development and later business success. Wal-Mart’s recent decision to list Quorn in 2000 US stores shows that what was once considered an unfamiliar niche has finally become part of the food mainstream.

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