madcomments

A soup-er opportunity

Posted in Marketing, Nikki Preston, Latest reporters' blogs October 18th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

It’s a lovely thought – buying soup for a mere 60p that contains vegetables and fresh meat that that have been locally sourced. And paired with packaging that has pictures of a chalkboard and baskets of produce, you could be forgiven for conjuring up all sorts of wholesome and healthy thoughts.

However, with a tin of Heinz’s new range of “Farmers’ Market” soups sitting in my pantry at home I am disappointed to find out that the tin has been nowhere near a Farmers’ Market. So the marketing has clearly worked, but what about false advertising?

However, Heinz isn’t the first to claim its product is home made, fresh or gourmet despite being mass produced.

But this time even the FMCG giant has had to concede that it contains produce and meat ”inspired” by a farmer’s market , which is of course completely different to being sourced from one.

However, is this a trademark issue because Heinz has chose to use general a term or is it one for the Advertising Standards Authority because it claims on that the products are from local farms?

Whatever rules Heinz may or may not have broken, one thing is for sure – the soup maker’s choice of branding has really touched a nerve because those supporting Farmers’ Markets, including the House of Commons claim it is has nothing to do with Farmers’ Markets which ever way you look at it.

If you ask me, Heinz has seen an opportunity to link a positive buzz word which brings up all kinds of positive thoughts and associate it’s with its product range.

However, there is a very fine line about what and what cannot be a brand name. Many names have are completely unrelated to the actual product – just look at Apple Computers or Mars Bars – so it just depends how close the relationship to the actual product is.

And with a range of tinned vege and meat soup – it is really border line with a range like Farmers’ Market.

Do you think the brand Farmers’ Market is fair game for the taking or has Heinz crossed the line?