FMCG or fast moving consumer goods sprang out of the mass industrialisation. Brands sprang up originally as a guarantee of quality. Later on as these brands needed to be promoted, we saw the foundation of the what we think of as modern marketing and advertising.
Today media and entertainment takes up an increasing amount of the household spend, as does housing, but FMCGs are a crucial part of their essential and disposable income spend.
They have nostalgia wrapped up in them, distinctive aromas, taste and packaging designs. From the smell of my Granny using so much Pledge on the TV that I was surprised it didn’t burst into flame to the taste of Cidona and texture of Boland’s Fig Roll biscuits in my mouth.
The sound of their advertising jingles was the soundtrack of my childhood. Digital advertising is largely rationale, it lacks the fluent devices that provide the centre to advertising and made FMCG advertising iconic. Fluent devices like the Peperami ‘Animal’, the M&M characters or the Cadbury Smash robots were embedded in deep marketing research. FMCG brands still sponsor the best research in marketing science.
I had the good fortune to work inhouse at Unilever and agency-side for their brands. I also managed to work on Coca-Cola and Colgate during my time in Hong Kong.
Nokia in China: it’s all relative | FT.com – doesn’t mention that Nokia screwed over Chinese partners by abandoning MeeGO and Symbian. Having a Nokia in China meant that you were part of the middle class when I first visited Shenzhen. There were domestic phones and competitors like Samsung and Motorola, but they didn’t really compete with Nokia in China. How times have changed in a few short years
Consumer behaviour
The Feature Phone Rises (Again?) – interesting piece by Junko Yoshida that asks what is a smartphone. My definition would be a phone that still works well as a phone is a feature phone, ‘smart phones’ aren’t particularly good at phoning anyone
Comprehensive timeline: Aurora Massacre : news – fascinating timeline on Reddit. What is interesting is the way the facts gradually coalesce and how far way this is from traditional storytelling
Suck.com: Becoming Digital – eerily prescient review of the media industry and how digital was likely to change it, despite having been written over a decade ago
What’s new in Linux 3.5 – The H – improvements in security, new developments in hardware like USB connected monitors and playing catch-up with dtrace functionality with Solaris
BBC documentary series The Men Who Made Us Fat is a fascinating mix of health, marketing history and the law of unintended consequences that has affected the modern diet. One phrase struck me as being a quite interesting. Expandables was a term to use a category of food products that would be part of multi-pack or buy-one, get-one-free deals. The products couldn’t be economic substitutes for instance discounting one type of meat would have it substituted over another meat-type.
In the case of food products it is usually items that people graze on, so this usually ends up not being the healthiest foods. The idea of grazeable supersized foods came from the middle of the last century in Chicago. There David Wallerstein came up with the idea of supersizing popcorn servings. Wallerstein came up with a behavioural change experiment as business idea based on the insight of that people might want to buy and eat more popcorn, but were simply ashamed of buying two bags.
Wallerstein was successful in his experiment. Wallerstein was appointed by Ray Kroc to the board of McDonalds in 1968 and then rolled out larger servings in McDonalds restaurants. So in that respect one could consider Wallerstein the inventor of expandables.
Another McDonalds business person Max Cooper, who was franchisee is credited with inventing bundling – packaging a high margin drink and french fries with a low margin burger. What McDonald’s now call their ‘combo meals’ or ‘extra value meals’. This cemented the role of expandables in food sales.
Unfortunately, this fits in with an unfortunate evolutionary trait, that humans are hardwired to consume high energy foods. And if the consumer has paid for it, they will eat it. Expandables are considered to have driven obesity, (there is some statistical correlation in obesity levels that suggest correlation).
More information
Zoe Harcombe’s blog has a complete summary of the TV episode to put expandables in context.
Looking at the Korean Oreo advert that seems to have caused a stir in the US, it seemed obvious to me that the advert was a case of throwing creative against the wall. It may have been used as a calling card, a way to spur debate or a mock-up for an award as Kraft seem to suggest.
In this respect it is rather like Volkswagen Polo car bomb ad that went around London agency world a number of years ago.
Korea like Singapore and China is a quite conservative country and has a higher proportion of practicing christians than you would expect. So I am not inclined to think that this was really designed to go out as marketing material from the band.
The Korean public would create uproar. Korean consumers have a reputation for staging protests and product boycotts. That would be way too risky for a foreign brand like Kraft.
I also found it is also interesting that Kraft has thrown Cheil under the bus really fast on this.
For what it’s worth I think that this could be a great creative if it had the right context – say targeting young men as a snack rather their more traditional demographic of family decision-makers – housewives. But you would have to select your media very carefully and be prepared for Lynx / Axe type backlash. More related content here.
Ferdinand A. Porsche, 76, Dies – Designed Celebrated 911 – NYTimes.com – Butzi Porsche dead. Butzi Porsche came from a family of engineers. His grandfather led the original team behind the Volkswagen Beetle. His father had been part of that engineering team and went on to found what we now know as Porsche. However, Butzi Porsche wasn’t engineer but a designer with technical chops. After an infamous meeting of the Porsche family, no members were allowed to work at Porsche. Butzi Porsche didn’t get to do more after he designed the 911. Instead Butzi Porsche started Porsche Design. Butzi Porsche did product design for other companies. Porsche Design also came out with its own products with Butzi Porsche designing watches, glasses and more. Butzi Porsche resigned from Porsche Design in 2005 due to ill health.
Why Are So Many Americans Single? : The New Yorker – single living was not a social aberration but an inevitable outgrowth of mainstream liberal values. Supported by modern communications platforms and urban living infrastructure: coffee shops, laundrettes
Kraft break-up yields marketing shift: Warc.com – the break-up is ironic when you look at the trouble they went to, in order to buy Cadburys and then break their business down broadly into Cadburys + Jacobs Suchard vs Kraft US.
HK’s rich hesitate to have babies | SCMP.com – interesting takeaways: didn’t want the emotional commitment, time poverty, financial stability / too small a living space and concerned about the local environment not being suitable for children. It was interesting that the education system was given such a hard time, given that it’s better than the UK system (paywall)
agnès b. | VICE – great interview with French fashion designer agnés b
Marketing
Fueling the hunger for The Hunger Games – The New York Times – really interesting comment: …during the 1980s you bought the poster and once a year went to a convention and met your people for something like Star Trek (and Star Wars). It misses out the fact that you are likely to have had real-world friends that you would have talked about it with as well – marketers now seem blindsided to the real-world
Gore-Tex Under Siege from Waterproof Fabric Newcomers | OutsideOnline.com – interesting how Goretex waterproof fabric stranglehold mirrors Microsoft’s position in the technology sector. Goretex was historically under threat from a number of systems that had varying degrees of impact. Hipora is a silicon coating structure invented by Korean firm Kolon, Schoeller’s C change which has temperature dependent venting, SympaTex commonly used when you see ‘no brand’ 3-layer laminate, usually lower price products that would lose margin paying for Goretex licensing. Lowe Alpine’s ceramic coated triple point fabric, but managed Goretex to survive and Lowe Alpine didn’t. There are other competitor products including I suspect that the other fabrics will become niche pieces unless they sort their marketing out. Goretex is primarily a branding exercise, that sets minimum standards such as taped seals. Much of Goretex intellectual property has been voided or circumvented.
Marketing is where the Goretex difference lies now, but it is known for a confrontational relationship with partners.
Kwok brothers arrested by HK watchdog – FT.com – Sun Hung Kai is Hong Kong’s largest property company. Surprising that they are involved as the big firms there generally keep their noses clean (paywall)
