Tag: food

brand values, branding

When are organisational values of no value?

When they bear absolutely no relation to the business they are meant to be representing.

I feel a bit mean having a go at a donut company when I have genuinely never tried one of their products, but their mission and vision are so far from any from of reality that I have to pick up on it.

I was with a colleague dropping a hire car back to Hertz in Lexington, Kentucky early in the morning and as they didn’t have a public toilet, went into the Krispy Kreme next door.

There were a few couples and individuals in there eating donuts for breakfast and a mini production line producing and adding toppings to the standard looking donut. It had a horrible air of grubbiness and smelt like the inside of a fryer.

It touched my life but not in a good way. It definitely didn’t enhance it, other than make me laugh out loud when I read this proud statement on the wall,

Here it is in all of its glory.

Mission

To touch and enhance lives through the joy that is Krispy Kreme.

I’m not sure what to say about this other than it is clearly ridiculous. If you ate this for breakfast regularly you would die younger than you would if you didn’t eat it.

That’s touching lives but not enhancing them, unless you call a shortening of your life an enhancement? Maybe it is as it gets you away from eating this for any longer than necessary?

Vision

To be the worldwide leader in sharing delicious tastes and creating joyful memories.

This is the easily the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever seen for a company vision.

If anyone can honestly say any of their top say, 100 joyful life memories is eating a donut in a strip mall that smells of cooking fat, then I’d say they maybe need to question some of their life choices.

I’m sure a donut can be a great treat and these may well be good donuts. Maybe even better than a homemade, more natural one such as the ones made by Doughnotts.

But I doubt it.

Donuts are staples in theme parks as they are the epitome of treat snacks which give you a sugary rush and the operators very high margins on every one they sell. it’s all about the context.

But if they become staples for breakfast and you feel any form of long-term joy about that particular life enhancement, I’d suggest you need to seek help, and welcome the onset of diabetes with open arms.

Their vision needs to be more along the lines of creating amazing tastes and flavours and bringing smiles to peoples faces when they enjoy them with friends.

Perhaps their vision needs to be to deliver that experience worldwide, in places that people are having fun together.

In the UK, Krispy Kreme, in all of their ultra processed glory, are in lots of motorway services. Who knows how long they have sat there festering in their plastic boxes? In the USA, it appears they prefer strip malls as outlets.

Neither of those are particularly inspiring or desirable locations, and as such, the current mission and vision are missing reality by a country mile.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Jamie Oliver in Boots – And then he rolled over

It was a good effort, but for me was doomed from the start. Jamie Oliver in Boots. More about volume than brand alignment.

It’s a bit like Asda selling Bose, Bentley or maybe a premium food range by Heston Blumenthal. The brands just don’t connect and their audiences have almost no overlap, so they are doomed to fail from the start. The danger for the premium brand is that it becomes tarnished by hanging out with the cheaper one.

A while ago I predicted they would need to include it in the Boots meal deal for it to succeed. And then more recently, they blinked and made a mini meal deal with an alignment with Innocent – which was a good thing.

And now they have gone one better (cheaper) again and made a real meal deal with a drink and a snack for the fixed price of £4.95. This is almost as cheap as some of the sandwiches on their own. It may be a last roll (or salad) of the dice, but it does feel like an important price point to have ducked under and for me is now far more likely to succeed. What it will do for the long term brand equity of Jamie Oliver is less sure, but it’s a step downwards that will be very hard to recover from.

Jamies does (cheap) lunch via the meal deal at Boots
Jamies does (cheap) lunch via the meal deal at Boots

Thanks for the picture Leo.

branding

Jamie Oliver in Boots – The other guy blinked

Jamie Oliver in Boots - A sort of meal deal with Innocent
Jamie Oliver in Boots – A sort of meal deal with Innocent

I have written about Jamie Oliver in Boots a few times and the brand asking to extend the lunch price from £3.29 to nearer £7.00. A lovely idea, but unlikely in practice.

As much as I wanted to try it, I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy the sandwiches. Call it mental block or sheer tightwaddiness, But finally, the other guy blinked and they have added the whole Jame Oliver range into a form of meal deal. It’s not within the full £3.29 spectacular, but rather a £4 partnership with Innocent.

This is quite clever. Brands hang out with brands that work for them and make each other look good. By sharing the deal, the two brands feed off each other and may both benefit.

So, I bought one. A ‘Proper Salmon Sarnie’ and I have to admit it was up there with the nicest sandwiches I have ever had from a supermarket. Certainly equal to the taste of the ‘Taste the Difference’ sandwiches in Sainsbury’s, which are part of their £3 meal deal.

So, maybe there’s hope for the range yet.