Coutts, Farage and the inclusivity paradox

 

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled Your customers choose you. At the time, I believed that it was nigh-well impossible for a brand of any size to pick and choose its customers. Much as they’d like to. Coutts for example, state on their website that “Coutts clients are trailblazers and pioneers, the disrupters and challengers who help to shape the fabric of UK society.”

Dream on, Coutts, I would have thought a few weeks ago. You may have a few photogenic dazzling young movers and shakers, who you’ve displayed prominently on your website. But you’ve also got a heck of a lot of retired brigadiers and boring old conservative farts. And, people like Nigel Farage.

Well, we all know that didn’t end well. But while FMCG brands from bog cleaner to baked beans would have difficulty stopping Mr Farage, Mr Trump or anyone else from buying their product, banks can close accounts. Social media platforms, too. What has been revealed in the case of Farage is that the resaons were nothing to do with insufficient funds in the account, or being a politically-exposed-person. It was a case of Farage’s views and opinions - as catalogued in a multi-page dossier - “not aligning with the bank’s values.”

I’ve done a lot of work on brand (rather than corporate) values, and the challenge was always three-fold. First of all, finding descriptors that could legitimately be described as “values” - generally nouns. Secondly, for the combination - and I’d advise not picking more than four - to be distinctive and fitting to that particular brand. And finally, things that weren’t so vague, intellecually airy-fairy or obscure that no-one had a clue how to put these into practice.

Whether it’s the B-Corp/ESG movement or the interest in Purpose, I don’t know. But values - whether applied to corporate or brand - seem to have become simultaneously samey and vague over the last years. Many companies don’t divulge what they’re for, rather what they’re against - all the usual suspect -isms and -phobias along with hate and toxicity in general.

Is “diversity” a value? I don’t think so, any more than “equity”. These words have taken on very particular meanings in corporate-speak. 

And when it comes to the third member of this particular trio, then Coutts are really tying themselves up in knots. Even putting aside the financial requirements to become a customer, just take a look at the screenshot from their website. Under the section on “Inclusion” comes the text “when you become a client of Coutts, you’ll be part of an exclusive network.”

To me, it all illustrates a lack of that good old-fashioned brand value, integrity.  

Sharemongering

 

During the 20-teens, pre-Covid, I got terribly excited about “The Sharing Economy”. My trusty trend-forecaster newsletter contacts did, too - forever sending little examples of apps for sharing anything from leftover food to power tools to skills. My response was always the same - wow! Great idea! Must try it out. Then I’d look at the app, or the website and remember that I live in Bruchköbel, a German town in rural Hessen with 20,000 inhabitants who are unlikely to be early adopters of such gizmos. Why not? Well, I’ll come to that, but the clue is in the photos above.

There’s an article about the death of the Sharing Economy in Fast Company. Or at least what we all got excited about ten or fifteen years back. The article goes through the history of the idea - how tech put us on the path away from ownership and towards collective peer-to-peer good. Looking back, some of the orignal Sharing Economy players are still going strong - from Airbnb to Uber. And I think the food sharing app OLIO is doing OK, too, having gone into toys, toiletries, tupperware and stuff. Ditto, Peerby - although the nearest neighbourhood I could find is in Holland.

But generally, the article concludes that the sharing power drills with neighbours concept hasn’t really taken off. While people like the idea in theory (and of course, it ticks a few virtue-signalling boxes), in the end they can’t be a**ed because for a few quid more you could get the thing delivered from Amazon. Many of the original Sharing Economy players that have survived have - rather like ebay - started off peer-to-peer then ended up becoming more and more dominated by companies and corporates rather than private individuals.

I still get those newsletters, though - and here’s a recent-ish sharing economy thing that’s trying to make fashion more sustainable with its “community of expert seamstresses” - Sojo. And looking at the website, I was reminded the following:

    - someone in the Bruchköbel Facebook Forum offering a box of limes and lemons to whoever was        first to come and collect

    - a hand-written sign on a garden gate to say that they had fresh eggs to give away today

    - walking past the two local tailors/seamstresses that are practically next door to each other (and I am sure there are one or two others in the town)

And I wonder - who needs the diversion, the middleman, the app? Both from a point of view of fiddliness and inconvenience, but also something more fundamental when it comes to “local” and “community.” I’ve had hotel owners requesting me to please, please book direct rather than through one of the big booking websites. It’s to do with money, of course, but also maintaining individuality and integrity.

I can understand the reluctance of many small local businesses to get caught up on these global platforms - in the same way that I won’t be touting my wares on Fiverr.  

 

RETROWURST: Hipp July 2005

 

Working on a brand that’s particularly relevant to your stage in life is usually a joy. When my son was a baby, I worked on Pampers at Saatchi, then on HiPP at TBWA. And this month, here are my musings on the subject of HiPP from July 2005.

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The subject of this month’s Extrawurst is the world’s biggest processor of organic food products. Or is it a leading baby food brand? Or is it the grandson of a Bavarian pastry chef? Claus Hipp and his brand Hipp is all of these. Herr Hipp was recently awarded the Stern/McKinsey StartUp prize for life achievement in the marketing of Organic products. This month, I’m going to take a look at the secrets behind his success.

 

Claus Hipp is a familiar figure in German advertising. He regularly appears in print and TV advertising- an elderly man dressed in traditional dark-green Bavarian jacket and hat, striding across beautiful rolling fields, rather like Heidi’s grandfather or a more ideologically sound Bernard Matthews. He always ends his TV spots with a line that translates roughly to “and I’m proud to give my name to it.” In addition to his commercial responsibilities, Herr Hipp is also something of an artist and oboe player in a Munich orchestra. The man seems to exude balance and harmony in all things; a distinct contrast to the usual image of the stressed, power and profit-obsessed, cultural philistine businessman.

 

Hipp is a family business that has remained in the family for over 100 years. The story goes that Claus Hipp’s grandfather, Joseph, who was a pastry-chef with a Konditorei in the little Bavarian town of Pfaffenhofen, produced a rusk flour mixed with milk to help his wife with their twin babies, who she was having problems breast-feeding. The babies thrived, as did five subsequent offspring and Hipp’s first “formula” became in demand. One of those five offspring, Georg, took over the business in 1932 and founded his own firm in Pfaffenhofen. Georg Hipp developed the business and introduced the concepts of organic farming and baby food based on vegetables in glass jars in 1956 and 1957 respectively. The current generation of Hipps- Claus and two brothers- took over in 1967 and over the last nearly 40 years have continued the development of organic farming and processing.

 

Hipp today is the world’s biggest processor of organic raw materials. Annual sales are €240m, 1000 workers are employed and 1m jars of baby food are produced each day. Hipp has 207 products, from Fennel tea (from 1 week) to young carrots (from 4 months) to a toddler meal of Spätzle mit Karotten und Rinderrahmgeschnetzlte (South German noodles with carrots and beef strips in cream sauce) through to a relatively new line of Müslis aimed at adults.

 

Hipp products are sold at a considerable premium to other baby foods. On the rational level, most people will cite the organic and quality elements. Baby food is a clear case where the end consumer is not the purchaser and, even more so than for dogs and cats (even fussy little ones!), parents need a brand where they can really put their trust. But there is also a strong emotional element to this price premium. It is well known that many adults (primarily young women who are not yet mothers) also buy Hipp for their own consumption in Germany. Part of this is a certain cult element but part of it is the same emotional magnet that draws so many parents into the brand.

 

It’s often said that buying into a brand involves buying into a world that that brand creates. The world of Hipp is very clear. It’s a rural idyll of green countryside, happy cows and chickens and fresh fruit and vegetables ripened under a benevolent sun, tended with loving care by the benevolent grandfatherly Herr Hipp himself. It’s a world of innocence and happiness, symbolized by the child-like, sunny logo with its paint box colours of pink, turquoise, orange and violet and its heart dotting the “i”. It probably wouldn’t be going too far to say that Hipp takes us back into a forgotten world of innocence - the original Garden of Eden. For a young mother in a Berlin apartment stuck indoors with a colicky baby on a rainy January day, one can see the appeal.

 

Of course, a lot of brands create equally seductive worlds and images but in the case of Hipp, this isn’t a dream world. It really exists. I have been to Pfaffenhofen which is approached via rolling green fields and fruit orchards, interspersed with little villages with coloured houses and onion-domed churches. In Pfaffenhofen itself you can still enjoy delicious cakes in the original Hipp Konditorei. The Hipp headquarters itself is more like a chalet for a skiing holiday than an office. There are wooden beams everywhere, crucifixes on the walls of the conference rooms and water from the Hipp spring to drink.

 

It is this integrity and consistency of brand and reality that is the key to Hipp’s success. In many ways, although the brand is now over 100 years old, it has more of a feel to it of more modern brands such as Body Shop or, more recently, Innocent Drinks. The brand itself (or at least the first product) arose from a real personal need. The company has grown and developed but never moved away from its roots, either physical or philosophical. It is a company with transparency and integrity and a clear point of view or philosophy above and beyond the product- the belief in “the best from nature; the best for nature.”

 

In addition, there is a lead figure that represents the company and its philosophy in the person of Claus Hipp. While Corporate Social Responsibility may be the latest bandwagon for many large companies these days, this was always there for Hipp as a normal and natural part of the company’s belief system. And while we are talking about belief, one cannot avoid the strong spiritual element in the Hipp philosophy, particularly when one thinks about all those crucifixes in Pfaffenhofen. The Hipp family, with Claus Hipp as no exception, is strongly Catholic and the company is run on un-ashamedly Christian principles. 

 

While it may not be everyone’s cup of organic red berry juice with spring water, Hipp as a company has a clear stance and clear principles. All of these elements add up to a brand ethos that cannot be copied. This, combined with a strong product range in terms of quality and breadth, make for a unique and sustainable brand.

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The little chap in the photo is about to turn 23 and has a proper job servicing and repairing aircraft. And what about HiPP? Well, really very little has changed. Stefan has taken over from father Claus as main spokesman and they’ve launched nappies. (I suppose the associations are slightly less yukky than Pampers introducing baby food.)

The organic credentials have stood the brand in good stead, although they have been accused of slight over-enthusiasm with their talk of “climate-positive.”

It’s also interesting to see how an openly Christian company fares these days - and the international website does make some rather pompous-sounding remarks about “the moral decay of society” which may not go down well in some quarters.

Do today’s young parents want to see the authentic sick-cloth-no-sleep-screeching-baby world that some brands like to use in their advertising? Or the reassuring green fields, apple orchards, avuncular Stefan and smiley tots of HiPP? That remains to be seen.

10 Green Bottles

 

Drinks swirl in and out of fashion like nobody’s business. Thirteen years ago, I was commenting on the revival of Aperol and the appeal of Jägermeister. And in between, we’ve had the gin revolution, too. For every marketer trying to capitalise on the “sober curious” movement, there seem to be ten times as many rediscovering and relaunching alcohol brands from the dim and distant past.

It seems to be Sleeping Beauty Underberg’s turn to be kissed awake now. When I first came to Germany, Underberg was one of those odd things that I put down to cultural differences. Little green 20ml bottles, wrapped in a twist of brown paper, sold at supermarket checkouts like sweeties. Weird-fey imagery of mystical-looking meadows and fairies, like the cover of some tacky fantasy-romance paperback.

Underbergis a brand with huge prompted awareness (88%) yet it isn’t really top-of-mind. It was originally positioned as a digestif, but probably more known as a hangover cure. It has a mass of half-remembered dictinctive assets to work with, including a brand song (or march) which UK readers will know as Colonel Bogey (with a rather different text that Germans wouldn’t be too keen to revive). Underberg bottle tops are popular with collectors on ebay, as are bandolier-style Underberg belts.

The people at Underberg have taken this rich brand history and made something fresh, distinctive and appealling out of it, in my view. The brand has the advantage that it’s so ancient (it dates from 1846) that the imagery of that era can happily be used without running into too many dodgy associations. The “magic world of herbs” (evoked through illustrations evoking 19th century botanists and explorers) fits nicely with today’s desires for naturalness and no artificials.

The phrases “probably the most famous bitter in the world” and “only 5 human beings know the recipe” borrow from Coca Cola, Dr Pepper and Carlsberg. But that’s no bad thing - and, most importantly, what I think this new presentation does is capture the mystery and magic at the heart of this quirky and very German brand.

   

Bloomin’ lovely!

 

Now here’s an idea that takes outdoor advertising to a whole new level. It’s spectacular, good for the environment and right on-brand. And it involves collaboration between one of Germany’s branding giants and a small start-up agency. Plenty of boxes ticked aleady.

The project, “Magenta Blossom” is a nature sponsorship for Deutsche Telekom. Fields near Euskirchen, an area as big as 56 football pitches, have been planted with millions of wild flower and herb seeds. Come August, the whole lots will bloom in the form of a “T” logo in the brand’s distinctive magenta colour, as well as the sustainability hashtag #GreenMagenta.

 

The agency involved are a (as yet) small outfit from Munich who specialise in uniting the interests of framers, nature and companies. They’re called GEOXIP   and are whizzes at precision sowing, amongst other things. As well as looking magnificent and colourful, all those blooms will atrract bees and help to regenerate the land, improving soil quality.

Everything will be coming up roses. Or similar.

I’m also wondering how long it will be before more of those stories about farmers selling advertising space on cows will recirculate. Moo. 

RETROWURST: Vegetarianism June 2005

 

For this month’s Retrowurst, I’m biting into a rather meaty topic. Or not. Back in 2005, I could count the number of true vegetarians that I knew in Germany on the thumbs of two hands. And I remarked that vegetarianism seemed rather less militant and in-your-face here in Germany compared to the UK. How have things developed in the last 18 years? Has Sauerkraut Strudel taken over the world? Or is Schlachtplatte still the order of the day?

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The other day, I came across a rather unusual situation in Germany - at a lunch for twelve people, half of these decided that they wanted a vegetarian option rather than the roast pork (no surprises there!) that was on offer. The restaurant was extremely obliging and managed to conjure up six portions of something rather tasty involving aubergines in less time than it takes to say Schweinshaxe und Sauerkraut.

 

What was unusual was that so many of the party wanted a vegetarian option: maybe, predictably enough, all were female, but, interestingly, no-one was actually a “real” vegetarian – it was just that it was a hot day, we were eating outside and fancied something a bit lighter than slabs of roast pork and gravy. In fact, I can count the number of “real” vegetarians I know here in Germany on the thumbs of two hands, whereas almost everyone I know in the UK is either a vegetarian, a “demi-veg”, a poultry-and-fish only, whatever that’s called, trying to cut down on red meat, has given up beef since BSE or is going through some phase involving some combination of the above.

 

I tried to find some figure on the internet to support this apparent absence of vegetarians and found that, actually, there are more vegetarians in Germany than in the UK, in terms of pure numbers and that around the same % (about 7-8%, depending on which survey you look at) in both countries are actually vegetarian. These figures seem to contradict people’s experience: for visitors from the UK who have a vegetarian inclination, Germany does not seem a particularly vegetarian-friendly place. I often hear complaints that even innocent-sounding soups, fried potatoes or salads turn up with pieces of bacon or other meat in them and that there don’t seem to be very many vegetarian options on menus, let alone vegetarian restaurants.

 

My first observation on this apparent paradox is this: in Germany, vegetarianism is perfectly acceptable but the vegetarians themselves are not as vocal and “militant” as they may be in the UK. In good restaurants, vegetarian options are always available, but you have to ask for them. The chef will then prepare something almost tailor-made to your tastes and to what is in season. In Italian, Turkish or Greek restaurants, the usual meatless choices are there for the taking (or eating-in) but no menus are emblazoned with V-Signs or other symbols of militant vegetarianism. There are no trendy vegetarian cooks on the TV or blatant “veggie-only” brands of ready-meals in the freezer cabinet. Vegetarians in Germany hide their light a little under a cabbage leaf. What vegetarian restaurants there are tend to be in a bit of a 1970s sackcloth and sandals time-warp- humble, worthy and unassuming. Although vegetarianism has grown since the BSE crisis, there just doesn’t seem to be the “noise” about it that one finds in the UK. Perhaps it doesn’t help that one of the German-speaking world’s most famous vegetarians was He Who Must Not Be Named.

 

In contrast to the unassuming vegetarians, meat-eaters in Germany are a proud and loud lot. The Germans are totally unapologetic about meat, and no-one is regarded as a pig or a glutton if they manage to devour three or four large steaks at a barbeque - and that’s just the women! A good proportion of red meat in the diet (as long as it is from pigs or cows of German origin) is regarded as normal and healthy and certainly not something to be ashamed of or to try and cut back on. There is a total lack of squeamishness about meat and its origins here. Whereas meat is trimmed and shaped and then wrapped in layers of plastic in the UK supermarket, traditional butchers here still enjoy a roaring trade; meat is minced, sliced or carved with skill and pride before your eyes in Germany. No-one gets too upset about bones, meat on the bone or identifiable parts of the animal here. At one wedding I attended, the main dish was Spanferkel or roast suckling pig (and no, there wasn’t a vegetarian alternative although one could have gnawed on a pretzel or two) and the pigs’ heads were put on display and even photographed amid the other decorations on the buffet table, something that my UK sensibilities found a little odd. Small Gasthofs and pubs will regularly hold something called a Schlachtfest, where meat and sausages from a newly slaughtered pig will be consumed with great gusto. And I remember another occasion where a vegetarian friend of mine from Switzerland turned an interesting shade of green and almost had to leave the table as he watched a group of slim young girls (the types that look as if they survive on lettuce leaves and grated carrots) devouring boiled pork knuckle off the bone in an Apfelweinkneipe in Frankfurt.

 

So there you have it – it is not so much that vegetarianism is absent or frowned-upon in Germany- it is simply that it can’t make itself heard above the raucous meaty cacophony that is integral to German life. Perhaps it is because the German meat industry has, as yet, proved itself to be BSE free or perhaps it’s because the Germans are so much closer to the land than we Brits, but the day of getting the average German to swap his Schnitzel for a courgette crumble looks to be in the far-distant future, if at all.

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The first thing that struck me, reading this again, is that I have zero memory of that aubergine lunch, which is rather worrying. Perhaps I made it up. The second thing that’s interesting is that there’s no mention of “vegan”, “plant-based” or “climate change” whatsoever in that article.

Diet has become political in the last 18 years, here in Germany too, with the Greens in power. And this makes it difficult to figure out what is actually happening. I found plenty of articles in UK news sources to suggest that Germans are going vegetarian en masse. But on closer inspection, these are mainly based on interviewing young trendies in Berlin, and an excuse for dreadful punny headlines involving the word Wurst. Who on earth would resort to such cheap journalism?

What reasonable-looking data I could find suggests that vegetarianism is around 10% of the population in both the UK and Germany. And I’d probably have to summon fingers and thumbs on both hands now, especially when it comes to my son’s friends. But on the other hand (hang on, I’ve used both already in the last sentence), meat consumption in Germany is still pretty high compared to the UK and not really falling that much.

I suspect that, as usual, the answer is “both”. More flexitarians and people dipping into veganism and vegetarianism when it suits them, but also more people enjoying the increasing variety of meat and meat products offered. 

And one brand that has got catering for all down to a fine art is Rügenwalder Mühle - a trusted brand that’s been making sausage and cold meat products for nearly two centuries, but is also knocking out credible vegan products faster than you can say Bierwurst.  

Paradessence

 

I’ve got a list of books that isn’t so much To Be Read as At-Some-Point-In-My-Life-This-Looked-Terribly-Interesting-And-I’ll-Make-A-Note-Of-It-And-Read-It-One-Day. Many of these never get read and drift to the oblivion of the depths of the list. The Savage Girl by Alex Shakar is one that I rescued just before it floated off into obscurity. I’d noted it about ten years ago, when the book was already ten years old.

Here’s the review I published. I wasn’t too savage, but it wasn’t an easy book to read:

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The Savage Girl

 

Without giving away too much, the subject of cryogenics features in “The Savage Girl”, and I felt rather as if I’d defrosted something frozen in time, or opened a time capsule as I read this novel. It was written at the turn of the 21st century, certainly pre-social media and Web 2.0 which makes it oddly quaint in places. 

 

The novel is a satire on marketing, trend-forecasting and the consumer society. Not the sort of book I normally read for leisure, but I’ve worked in advertising and marketing more years than I care to mention, so thought I’d give it a go.

 

I found the novel quite difficult to get into. Because of its age, a lot of what may have seemed futuristic at the time of writing seems a bit - so what, or what the? - today. One character sits looking at an array of giant computer screens, pulling out patterns. Well, today we have ChatGPT and tomorrow who knows? The characters are by-and-large grotesques - not human enough for you to care about any of them, yet not outrageous enough to be amusing. Sometimes, it all seemed a bit pretentious and just too clever for its own good.

 

Having said that, there were some excellent ideas along the way. The story forsees lots of stuff going on today - the metaverse and virtualism, shifting truths and echo chamber bubbles. I did cringe at some of the passages evoking those ghastly bullsh*tty brainstormings and insight sessions that I’ve participated in. And the concept of “Paradessence” - paradoxical essence or “two opposing desires that a product satisfies simultaneously” (such as stimulation and relaxation) - is spot on. “The job of a marketer is to cultivate this schismatic core, this broken soul, at the center of every product.”

 

The question of whether we are heading for the “Light Age” - the optimistic view - or the “Lite Age” was also interesting once I finally got the distinction.

 

All-in-all, thought-provoking in places, but wish I’d read this novel when it (and I) were 20 years younger.  

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There’s a long lecture by one of the obnoxious characters in the book, which examines Ernest Dichter’s The Strategy of Desire, Soviet propaganda and American marketing, and the development of irony and “now” - post-irony. All interesting ideas, which are commented on in this review and interview with the author. 

The “Paradessence” idea is one I’ve banged on about frequently in this blog - and I liked the examples in the book:

Coffee - stimulation and relaxation

Air travel - sanistised adventure, exoticism and familiarity

Ice cream - eroticism and innocence

And while one character refers to this as “a schismatic core/broken soul”, his less cynical colleague expresses it as the “magic” - the sneakers that enable you not just to grip the earth and stay grounded, but to soar into the air and your dreams, too.

I wonder how much money has been made over the years from touting the paradox-resolution brand essence idea around, dressed up with a clever-clogs name and a fancy model?