Making brands more distinctive

I wonder what people thought that they were getting for their £1.60 (Tesco website) frozen Findus Lasagne?

Meat, cheese, milk, pasta, tomatoes and additives – all grown, sourced, transported, prepared, cooked, frozen, packaged, distributed, warehoused, shelved and finally sold. Unsustainable for everyone in the food chain bearing in mind that everyone involved has to make some sort of profit.

I hope that this will be some sort of wake-up call that good food has a value. But I don’t hold out much hope.

As consumers we’ve had our expectations set that food is a commodity that can and should be cheaper.  Maybe major food brands need to press the reset button and start developing and communicating how their brands add value to food rather than the race to the bottom that we’ve witnessed over the past 10 years or so. Quality focused  niche brands may well benefit from a spike in sales or market penetration. Maybe these niche, organic or independent food manufacturers and retailers should turn up the marketing spend so that consumers know that they’ve an alternative to the Shergar burger.

Sound marketing should be about giving people what they want, or making them want what you’ve got. At the moment the UK processed food industry doesn’t seem to be fulfilling either role very well.

As we (hopefully this time) emerge from recession It’s a timely reminder that brands can damage the only real equity they have, quality of reputation, if they decide to compete on commodity status rather than a quality differential.

Joe