Country Crock, owned by the margarine company
Upfield, has
released a line of
Plant Butters that contain almond, olive or avocado oils. The spreads are available in both sticks and tubs.
Kraft has
launched a national TV ad that states that, for Mother’s Day, the company will pay for what mothers really want: a day away from their kids. So, moms can hire a babysitter and send the bill to
Kraft.
So What? First of all, for those of you needing a sign that plant-based products were mainstreaming, you can look no further than this launch from
Country Crock. If there was a bellwether brand to indicate full trend adoption, old-school
Country Crock is it. However, if you sense something amiss here, you must be a food scientist.
Country Crock is a brand of margarine and margarine (by its very
definition) is made from vegetable oil (aka plants). So, either
Country Crock assumes that their consumer doesn’t know this fact or they are just pointing out that now, instead of being made from unknown plants, it is made from specific plants (and even then,
just in tiny amounts—its still a vegetable oil margarine).
Is it ok to tell a ‘mis-truth’ to your consumer? In the case of
Country Crock’s labeling, its less of a mis-truth and more of a mis-direction. Would it have been better labeled as
Country Crock,
now with avocado oil? Maybe. However, a lot of
Country Crock consumers likely picked up this product thinking they were trying something new and being trendy. The biggest test is: would
Country Crock consumers be upset if the truth were explained to them? Potentially, but most would rightfully say that the company delivered what they said they would.
However, the same can’t be said for
Kraft. The commercial claims it’s as easy as three steps: 1. Hire a sitter; 2. Submit your receipt; 3.
Kraft covers it. Again, like
Country Crock, its technically true, but the difference is that its doubtful the company is going to be covering your Saturday night freedom. Go on the
website and you quickly find out that the company has capped the payout to $100 per person for a max of $50,000 for the total campaign. Plus, the whole campaign is only good until the 19
thof May!
Did
Kraft understand the motherhood angst of 24/7 parenting and communicate that effectively? Absolutely. Did they cover themselves legally? Looks like it (but I’m not a lawyer). Did they anticipate the negative consumer reaction that would come from people finding out that the chances that they’d ever see any compensation are probably near zero? I don’t think so. Yes, it’s all there in the fine print, but that doesn’t matter. Consumers take you at face value and you have to deliver on that.
This marks the second time that
Kraft has played fast and loose with consumer trust. The first
being in 2016, when they told consumers that they had already pulled artificial colors and dyes from their products and ‘look, you didn’t notice.’ While some advertising friends of mine thought that was a brilliantly clever campaign, I saw it from a consumer’s POV. A POV that basically saw, ‘we as the powerful corporation just manipulated you, aren’t we cheeky.’ And I think, they’ve just done it again.
Net-net: your consumer empathy doesn’t just need to be around the emotional and functional brand insight, it needs to extend to the reception and aftermath of the campaign. Just because your lawyers and fine print cover you doesn’t mean that consumers will.