The continentalisation of the UK

When I was a small child, in the 1960s, people spoke about “The Continent”, meaning mainland Europe. A person, a foodstuff, an attitude, was described as “continental”, in a sligtly disapproving tone,  meaning unusual and a little racy on the one hand, but “not quite what we do around here” on the other.

From an early age, I was fascinated by “The Continent” and all the treasures it might hold, approved-of or not. I blame Caroline and her Friends. For those who’ve never had this delight, Caroline was a bossy little girl accompanied by a menagerie of dogs, cats (domestic and Big) and a lone bear. This motley crew got into all kinds of scrapes, going camping, on ski holidays, or touring around “The Continent” - stuffing themselves with spaghetti or Belgian Frites, hurling Dutch cheeses around or playing Alphorns. I have imitated much of this behaviour throughout the course of my life. 

Some of my earliest food-related memories relate to finding unusual brands and products in slightly obscure places. There was this cafe and health food shop just down the road from us, for example:

Deborah’s was a vegetarian cafe and sold Birchermüsli as well as breakfast products such as Frugrains - which I can still taste - datey.

It wasn’t long, of course, before muesli became big business in the UK, with the launch of Alpen in 1971. Ski yoghurt - another “continental idea” which took a while to catch on, had been launched in the 1960s.

As well as the quirky Deborah’s, I remember the glorious smell of coffee roasting in a shop called Brimson’s in Camberley, and the first time I tried a croissant (from a “Continental” bake shop in Reading) - all very Proustian. Then there were the expeditions to a “delicatessen” in Ascot, mainly so my mum could buy the products she remembered from Canada - Betty Crocker and Aunt Jemima. This wonderful emporium sold exotic cocktail snacks, such as ROKA cheese biscuits. I see the packaging design has hardly changed, although I think they used to come in a tin.

All this continentalisation culminated in a coach trip around Europe, maybe following in Caroline & Co.’s foot- and pawprints. Here, I got to know even more continental culinary delights (and some not so delightful) as well as duvets, dirndls and dobra veče (yes, the tour ventured into what was then Yugoslavia).

I’ve now finally booked a trip back to the UK, the first since we became properly Brexitted. 

I’m hoping that Britain won’t have become decontinentalised as far as food and drink goes, anyway.

 

Silence of the brands

"If you can't find something nice to say, keep your mouth shut" is good advice, in my view, for brands (or the people running them) as in life.

I'm generally not keen on brand communication that's based on the "slag off the competition" strategy. There are a few rare cases where this is done well, but in the usual scheme of things, it ends up sounding like bitching. Or politics (if there is a difference).

Maybe that's no surprise these days. In the days of people "demanding" that brands have values, a purpose, stand for something and/or take a stand, and gushing and cooing all over the latest trendy issue-based film, maybe it's no wonder that some brands - who just want to sell their loo cleaner/razors/fast food - get a bit narked.

For example, if you're up against Starbucks, you may well lose patience with all the politically-correct ballyhoo that could possibly take some of your higher-minded customers. So you might be tempted to put out a message that reinforces what you are all about, plain and simple, while also taking a swipe at all that political purpose conversation codswallop.

Which is what Dunkin Donuts have done: the VP Brand Stewardship has put a message around social media - "it's donuts and ice cream - just be happy." As reported in the (conservative) magazine Human Events.

Part of me kind of agrees with the sentiment, but the cynical part has a question.

In this day and age, maybe refusing to go political is a political stance in itself.

In a world where free speech is OK, so long as it's the right political hue, and where brands are encouraged to take a stand as long as it's for something in the liberal-left arena, maybe a brand like Dunkin Donuts looks at its customer heartland and decides that the safest way to get those people on side is to take a swipe at the competitor, knowing that it's not the coffee that's up for criticism, it's the politics.

I prefer my brands strong and silent - doing what they do best, without taking potshots at others.

Ads that write themselves?

I wrote a little while back about the brilliant idea of a coffee poster that started an outbreak of yawning on the Brazilian subway. Still on the theme of coffee, and posters, comes what's being hailed as the world's first artificially intelligent poster campaign. Rather an unfortunate choice of words there - I would hope that the world has already seen many, many non-artificially intelligent poster campaigns.

Anyway, it has been created by M&C Saatchi in London for a fictional coffee brand, Bahio, and it's a poster that evolves according to how people react to it facially. This goes on for a month until the 'best' ad evolves through a kind of high-speed natural selection.

You can read more in this article but I thought I'd list some of the key principles at work here:
- Darwinian natural selection
- powered by a genetic algorithm
- analyses strength
- 1,000 images/fonts/layouts/copy
- length of engagement ... and so on and so forth.

Human creativity and judgement seem to be absent, apart from thinking up the whole thing in the first place.

Creative nightmare or the way to the future?

A big yawn

Sometimes you don't need deep philosophical insight for a great piece of brand communication, just a simple observation used in a smart way.

I love this promotion from Brazil for the brand Cafe Pele. From advertising agency Lew'Lara/TBWA, the idea uses a poster of a man's face on an underground platform in Sao Paulo. Sensor technology means that the poster yawns every time a commuter comes near. The more people approach, the more yawning, which, as everyone knows. is contagious. The result - a yawning epidemic.

At that point, Cafe Pele girls pop up with the solution - shots of espresso.

The Contagious Billboard is a super idea of what you can do to get attention for your brand, catching people in the right mood, in the right place, at the right time. Anything but a big yawn!