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Re: General Discussions

Reply #1215 –
If you’re right (which is disputed) then this is yet another evil perpetrated by racist and/or reactionary right wingers! Aren’t they ashamed of putting people out of work? Just so they can stamp their feet like little toddlers who want their own way over a new product name …

If they rebranded Weet-Bix and called it Wheat Bricks, I’d still buy it. How does the change of name affect the taste or quality of the product? Pathetic really …

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1216 –
Quote from: Mav on
If you’re right (which is disputed) then this is yet another evil perpetrated by racist and/or reactionary right wingers! Aren’t they ashamed of putting people out of work? Just so they can stamp their feet like little toddlers who want their own way over a new product name …

If they rebranded Weet-Bix and called it Wheat Bricks, I’d still buy it. How does the change of name affect the taste or quality of the product? Pathetic really …
I actually think the very average new name/branding and poor advertising/PR was a major contributor to their demise.
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1217 –
As pointed out by DJC, there’s no proof that there has been any demise. But let’s face it: this was not a case of a universally loved name (or product, for that matter) being harmed by a poor rebrand. The original name was unfortunate, to say the least. Market research is a well-developed expertise which is far more reliable than posters on a footy site pontificating about ups and downs in the cheese market. A bit of actual evidence would be nice to see before we conclude that doing the right thing leads to disaster.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1218 –
Quote from: Baggers on
I actually think the very average new name/branding and poor advertising/PR was a major contributor to their demise.
As I see it, it my own weird way! :o

 - The activists painted the general public as racist for buying the Coon brand, the new woke US based owners folded under inferred pressure from the activists who acted like it was some universal public outrage downunder. (PS; They tried to do the same to our very own Lily of Laguna based theme song, approaching our club's International sponsors to abandon support if the theme song wasn't changed.)

 - The general public saw the company's concession to the activists as an assertion that the public was in fact racist for buying the Coon branded product, the general public didn't like the label so it took offense at the assertion and discarded the Cheers brand replacement wholesale.

 - Supermarket shelves were full of the Cheers stuff they could not sell, even heavily discounted, rising resource costs were never the issue for the brand demise, that was just the corporate excuse deflecting from the corporate stupidity.

 - The huge annual loss claimed to be the reason for the manufacturing reshuffle was nothing more than the one off cost of rebranding a major retail trademark from Coon to Cheers.
The Force Awakens!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1221 –
All you need LP is some evidence to back up your theory. But as with most conspiracy theories, I’m sure you can read what you want into the tea leaves and claim the necessary proof is out there if people are just willing to see it.

I’m surprised that major brands don’t hire you instead of doing market research. They’d save heaps by listening to the Brand Whisperer.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1223 –
There’d be a big opening for you in the US, LP! There’s a lot of pressure to remove Confederate statues which were erected as the Deep South sought to win the peace after losing the Civil War. And they were largely successful. They managed to make the Lost Noble Cause a foundation of the Reconstruction: the idea that, as in Gone with the Wind, the blacks were happy working on plantations for loving owners who fed, clothed and housed them until the nasty Yankees and Federal Government violently crushed their States’ rights to self-determination. The Emancipation Proclamation, they argued, destroyed the economies of their States and unleashed feckless slaves who were unprepared to live and work productively in society. They may not have been able to resuscitate slave ownership, but they were successful in driving blacks into poverty and dependency.

Confederate Statues were an obvious threat to the black community, as much as lynchings were. But of course the white population in the South has been taught that the statues celebrate the heroic defence of States’ rights against an oppressive Federal Govt. They view the Civil War with pride in the same way Australians view Gallipoli.

I guess you’d argue that the campaign to demolish those statues should not succeed. I’m sure you’d be able to come up with an argument that giving in to it would reduce tourism in the area after Good Ol’ Boys took umbrage at the statues being labelled racist. You might even be able to show that poor black workers would be the ones who bore the brunt of the loss of redneck dollars. You might then say the activists who call for the removal of those statues are the real racists. You might argue that it’s far better to keep actual racists happy; they should be able to veto any effort to do the right thing.

On the other hand, I’d argue that any product or landmark that depends on keeping racists happy isn’t worth saving.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1224 –
Quote from: Mav on
All you need LP is some evidence to back up your theory. But as with most conspiracy theories, I’m sure you can read what you want into the tea leaves and claim the necessary proof is out there if people are just willing to see it.

I’m surprised that major brands don’t hire you instead of doing market research. They’d save heaps by listening to the Brand Whisperer.

Rather harsh, Wingman MAV.

Having worked in this business, and with some of the best ad agencies in the caper I do have some knowledge in this area. Market research is only one factor, then there's interpretation of the data, then there's implementation of a strategic marketing and PR plan to reach and motivate the perceived market - that means media usage, creative and image consultants, not to mention industrial psychology input.

Many a well market-researched product has flopped... P76, but that was awhile ago. More recently you can bet that the LNP did their market research before launching their (lame) ad campaign. Perhaps their market research was good, but the interpretation and implementation was woeful. I could site many examples (evidence?) of brands/products that underwent exhaustive market research, yet still failed. Re-branding successfully involves much more than blind adherence to market research. It aint linear.

If market research was the 'be all and end all' as you seem to believe, then every product re-branded using market research would be an instant success. It aint. There's a fair bit of creative, intuitive, experienced interpretation and art involved.
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1225 –
Wonder how the Coon family are going?
Reality always wins in the end.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1226 –
Quote from: Baggers on
Rather harsh, Wingman MAV.
…
If market research was the 'be all and end all' as you seem to believe, then every product re-branded using market research would be an instant success. It aint. There's a fair bit of creative, intuitive, experienced interpretation and art involved.
I didn’t say market research was the be all and end all. That’s a straw man argument. I said making up theories without evidence is the sin. After evidence is obtained by, you know, talking to actual people, then you can draw inferences from the facts. If the Liberals drew the wrong inferences from their focus groups, then that’s on them. In reality, what the Liberals did is what LP is doing. Everyone hates Dan because we do and a small number of cookers do, and Rupert as well, so that means we should run a whole campaign on Get Rid of Dan. If they’d actually done the work rather than going off gut instinct, maybe they would have done a bit better.
 

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1227 –
Quote from: Baggers on
Rather harsh, Wingman MAV.

Having worked in this business, and with some of the best ad agencies in the caper I do have some knowledge in this area. Market research is only one factor, then there's interpretation of the data, then there's implementation of a strategic marketing and PR plan to reach and motivate the perceived market - that means media usage, creative and image consultants, not to mention industrial psychology input.

Many a well market-researched product has flopped... P76, but that was awhile ago. More recently you can bet that the LNP did their market research before launching their (lame) ad campaign. Perhaps their market research was good, but the interpretation and implementation was woeful. I could site many examples (evidence?) of brands/products that underwent exhaustive market research, yet still failed. Re-branding successfully involves much more than blind adherence to market research. It aint linear.

If market research was the 'be all and end all' as you seem to believe, then every product re-branded using market research would be an instant success. It aint. There's a fair bit of creative, intuitive, experienced interpretation and art involved.

The thing is Shane, Coon/Cheers cheese is a minuscule component of a very large range of products manufactured, imported and sold by the various arms of Calendar Cheese/Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Company/Saputo.  I listed some of their brand names in a previous post and they cover everything from caviar to chocolate.  As I said before, it is ludicrous to suggest that rebranding one of their products caused such a drop off in sales across the board that they had to close plants in Victoria. 

Saputo closed their cheese slice factory in Cobram earlier this year.  Coon/Cheers is one of several cheese slice brands produced by Saputo.  In September, CEO Lino Saputo explained;

“Two platforms that have most upside for us are the US and the second one is Australia.

Australia is very different to the US — it’s not a commodity issue, it’s more a lack of milk production issue in the country.

Milk production has been declining by maybe four or five per cent per year which means less milk for us to process, which means we need less plant in our system to be able to run our plant more effectively, more efficiently.

By the end of our strategic plan (final year 2025,) we will have fewer plants in the US network and fewer plants in the Australian network."

The only "evidence" that the change from Coon to Cheers had an impact on Saputo's profitability are some throw away references to the name change in the Murdoch media's reporting of the closure of Saputo's Maffra plant.
“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”  Oddball

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1228 –
Quote from: cookie2 on
Wonder how the Coon family are going?
Probably the same as the Dicks, the Kochs, the Hoares, the Rapers and other families that are unlucky enough to have surnames that also have a less-than-pleasant slang or dictionary meaning. They could do what Koch’s around the world do: pronounce their name differently (Port’s President says “Cosh” while the Koch brothers in the US say “Coke”). Dr D’Arth battled on bravely. They could change their surname or marry out of it. The Saxe-Coburgs became the Windsors and the Battenburgs became the Mountbattens, both because of anti-German sentiment. Scott Camm of Block fame’s surname lost the Italian ending.

But most people with unfortunate surnames either take on a stage name or avoid naming their businesses or products after them. But in the case of the surname Coon, there’s a simple work around. Include the first name and straight away you get rid of the racial overtone. If they’d called it Henry Coon’s or Mervyn Coon’s, whatever he was, the problem disappears. That would assume that this guy was a true patriarch of the business, though, like Levi Strauss. Which just wasn’t the case here. Or if the other supposed root of the name is valid, maybe they could have named it “Racoons”. I can’t see why naming it after a disease-carrying, dumpster-diving, aggressive North American animal wouldn’t go gangbusters.

Taking the LP approach, I’m sure the Coon families living in Australia are overjoyed to be rid of a product that highlighted the negative association their name carries. Mind you, I have no evidence to support this conclusion but evidence is so last century.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1229 –
I think Eric Coon was the guy who invented the process for making the eponymous cheese.

Reality always wins in the end.