Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S7E05 - Delicious Names: Marketing Appetite Appeal

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

This week, we explore how marketers saved certain foods from oblivion by changing…their names. Many foods you enjoy started out life with very unappetizing names. Some so off-putting, I’m willing to bet you would have never gone near them. But you probably have one or two in your fridge today… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan. You just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year.

Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era,

dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 7, 2018. You're so king in it. 🎵 You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When I was a writer at an advertising agency in the late 1980s, I was working on the Nissan account. While we were doing good work for the Japanese automaker, there was a competing brand we all admired.

Specifically, it was their advertising we admired. A few years ago, this Honda was bought by Mrs. Jokelson of Yonkers, New York. She and her husband both drove the car and were very impressed. That's why a few years later, Mr. Jokelson bought his own Honda. The writing was always excellent and the production value superb. But it was the voiceover we loved. That voice belonged to actor Burgess Meredith. The award winning actor known for the films Rocky

and Grumpy Old Men had a twinkle in his voice. He added a distinct, whimsical personality to the Honda brand back then. The creative director on the Honda account at the time was Larry Postere. In his book titled Picket, Plunket and Pucket, he tells a story about Honda.

On the 10th anniversary of Burgess Meredith's run as the voice of Honda commercials, the advertising agency decided to throw him a party, and they also invited the Honda management to attend. The agency thought the Robert Frost poem, The Road Less Traveled, captured Honda's maverick spirit. So they asked Burgess Meredith if he would recite it for their clients at the party. Burgess was happy to do it.

But on the night of the party, Burgess Meredith showed up a bit tipsy. Throughout the night, he got even more tipsy, which was making the agency folks very nervous. a bit tipsy. Throughout the night, he got even more tipsy, which was making the agency folks very nervous. They were watching Meredith like a hawk,

hoping he had forgotten about the poem. But, being the trooper he was, Meredith eventually swayed to his feet and announced that, in Honda's honor,

he would recite Frost's immortal words. He performed the poem with gusto, slurred gusto, stumbling through most of the poem and flat-out forgetting other parts. To a bewildered smattering of applause, Burgess Meredith toasted the conservative Honda clients with another drink. Later that evening, the president of Honda pulled creative director Larry Postere aside

and said, Mr. Meredith is old. Postere protested, saying, yes, it was true, Burgess Meredith wasn't a young man, but his voice was still distinct and strong. Get rid of him, the president said. And that was it.

Ten years as the voice of Honda, then out due to a tipsy party moment. So the agency had to try and replace the wonderful Burgess Meredith. It was a tall order because Meredith had a magical, playful quality that was very hard to find. Then one day, the agency was told that Jack Lemmon was interested in becoming the voice of Honda. In his illustrious career, Lemmon had never done a commercial, so landing the Oscar-winning actor was a coup. Honda has been named number one in import owner loyalty for the 14th year in a row,

which means year after year, more people buy Honda after Honda. Why? Jack Lemmon brought back the whimsical touch that Honda had missed since the Burgess Meredith days. He even agreed to appear at the annual Honda dealers' meeting. That was a big deal, because celebrities rarely agree to those kind of events. But Lemon was very personable, and it was a great chance for

the dealers to snap photos and get autographs. But at the dealer conference, Postere was cornered by one of the car dealers. I'm not sure about your new voiceover guy, he said. Postere asked him if he didn't like his voice, reminding the dealer Lemon had won a few Oscars.

That's not the problem, said the dealer. Then, what is, asked Pasteur. It's his name, the dealer replied. Lemon. You know, the word lemon and cars. Not good. Pasteur feared in that moment he was about to lose his second famous actor.

Don't worry, Postere quickly said. Jack spells his name with two M's. Oh, said the dealer, then walked away. And that's how Jack Lemmon was saved in the Honda campaign. In the world of marketing, a name can save a product from oblivion. And that is especially true in the food category.

Many foods you enjoy start out life with very unappetizing names. As a matter of fact, they were so unappetizing, I'm willing to bet you would have never gone near them until marketing intervened to rechristen them. And while there aren't any lemons in our stories today, there are definitely some names that bore fruit. You're under the influence. Back in 1904, Mary Isabel Fraser was a missionary visiting schools in China.

When she got back home to New Zealand, she brought some fruit seeds back with her and gave them to a local farmer. He planted those seeds, and six years later, they bore fruit. It was brown, fuzzy, and somewhat unattractive on the outside, but green and delicious on the inside. Soon, more and more orchards began growing this crop. They named the fruit Chinese gooseberry because it had a similar taste to gooseberries and it came from China. In 1959, a New Zealand exporter wanted to begin shipping Chinese gooseberries to the North American market. But they ran into a problem.

One importer told the New Zealand company that a Chinese gooseberry would never sell in America. The name was simply unappetizing. Plus, it was a marketing nightmare because of the association, at that time, with communist China. So the New Zealand exporter decided to rename the fruit Melonette. But that name presented a monetary issue. Melons had high tariffs imposed on them. The exporter needed another name that branded the fruit and minimized duties. So he called it Kiwi.

It was the perfect name. New Zealanders were called Kiwis, and the national bird of New Zealand was the small, brown, flightless Kiwi, which kind of resembled the small, brown, flightless fruit. And when the Chinese gooseberry became the kiwi fruit, everything changed. Importers started to order it. Shoppers started to buy it. By 1976, the exported kiwi crop exceeded local consumption for the first time.

But it was the 1980s when the kiwi fruit hit its stride, when a big marketing campaign was developed. One of the key aspects of marketing kiwi fruit was to use recipes as a gateway. So, they marketed kiwi fruit with magazine recipe ads for kiwi cheesecake, kiwi pasta, salsa chicken with kiwi, etc. By 1991, kiwi pasta, salsa chicken with kiwi, etc. By 1991, kiwi sales were $140 million. By 2015, kiwi exports accounted for $1.2 billion of New Zealand's exports. Nobody would eat a Chinese gooseberry. Yet millions would eat a kiwi.

Same fruit, different name. That's the power of marketing. The aguacate fruit has been part of Central and South America since at least 500 BC. Over time, people started referring to it as an alligator pear, which was probably due to its green, leathery skin, which posed a big marketing problem. The association with a swamp-dwelling, man-eating reptile wasn't exactly appetizing. The fruit was actually good to eat, so it wasn't a product problem.

It was a marketing problem. A group of growers got together in 1915 to try and solve this marketing issue. Collectively, they decided to change the name of the fruit from alligator pears to avocados. The new name sounded exotic and appetizing. The growers, now renamed the California Avocado Association, positioned avocados as a luxury food in the 1920s. One print ad from that era showed a sliced avocado

on an expensive piece of china with the headline, The Aristocrat of Salad Fruit. However, just selling avocados to the wealthy was a niche play. Avocado growers needed to cultivate a much larger market to generate bigger revenues. But avocados were never an easy sell. Avocados weren't sweet. They had a green, leathery skin, they tasted best when they turned a dull brown, and they didn't cook well.

Various avocado marketing campaigns maintained moderate sales in the produce aisles during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Yet, avocados still puzzled people. Eventually, a PR firm was hired to make avocados, quote, an everyday item for shoppers. And that would turn out to be a turning point. In the 90s, the nature of Super Bowl Sunday changed. It became less about football fanaticism and more about getting together for a party

and consuming beer and chips. Avocado growers wanted in on the Super Bowl frenzy. The PR company devised the idea of a guacamole bowl by soliciting chip-dip recipes from NFL players and their families. Avocados are the main ingredient in guacamole. Hundreds of free avocado and guacamole samples were given out to sports reporters leading up to Super Bowl Day. It was a huge success.

Marketing had moved guacamole from the food pages to the sports pages. Sales shot up. From that time forward, guacamole became a Super Bowl ritual. Over 105 million pounds of avocados are now consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, making it the biggest avocado day of the year. That success has led to a broader consumption of avocados as an everyday food

ingredient. Between 1988 and the year 2000 alone, the value of avocados spiked by nearly 70%. Today, avocados are not only used in guacamole, but in smoothies, sandwiches, salads, pastas, popsicles, desserts, and even on toast. From alligator pears to avocados, what a difference a name makes. It would be a delicious lesson the Patagonian toothfish would soon learn. And we'll be right back after this message. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives, available wherever you download your pods.

Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Lee Lance was a fish merchant who sold product to restaurants. One day in 1977, he was in Chile looking for new types of fish to bring to market. While looking over the catch on the various fishing boats, he suddenly saw something he had never seen before. Lance asked what kind of fish it was. The fisherman had no idea what it was called. It was five feet long, it had bulging eyes,

a pronounced underbite, and very pointy teeth. It was ugly and menacing. Here's a picture of one. Exactly. It was actually a Patagonian toothfish. Fishermen didn't want to catch toothfish. It was simply bycatch, meaning it was caught inadvertently while fishing for other species. The reason Chilean fishermen didn't want to catch toothfish

was because no one in Chile wanted to eat toothfish. But Lance was intrigued. He took the toothfish home and fried it up in oil. Its white flesh had almost no flavor. It had the texture of a flounder, the richness of tuna. It didn't taste fishy.

Its fat content made it feel buttery in the mouth. It could stand up to any method of cooking and could accept any spice. In other words, it could serve up to any method of cooking and could accept any spice. In other words, it could serve as a blank canvas for chefs. There was just one teensy problem.

Lance knew he could never sell a dish called Patagonian Toothfish. This fish needed a more appetizing name. The first thing Lance decided was to call it a bass, because North Americans would be familiar with that word. Which is interesting, because the toothfish wasn't a bass.

It was from the cod family. Nevertheless, he considered names like Pacific sea bass and South American sea bass, but they didn't sound exclusive enough. That's when he settled on Chilean sea bass. But even a fish called a Chilean sea bass took a while to catch on in North America. Then one day in 1980, Lance landed a big contract from a company looking for a cheaper alternative

to the halibut it used in their fish sticks. Lance convinced them that their customers wouldn't notice the switch once the fish was deep fried. He was right. The company bought his entire stock. That was the turning point for Chilean sea bass. Soon, Chinese restaurants started buying it. Celebrity chefs started using it and praising it. The Four Seasons put it on its menu. Seabass became the fish to ask for. Today, it's unlikely you'll find Chilean seabass served at Red Lobster. It's more likely found at upscale restaurants with white tablecloths.

And you'll pay top dollar for its buttery, melt-in-your-mouth flavor. But that's the power of marketing. Take a fish that was previously ignored, market it as fine cuisine, and give it an appealing name. Back in the 40s and 50s, prunes had one job. They were nature's laxative. And for years, prune marketing capitalized on that.

Brand cereals took the opportunity to highlight the benefits of a high-fiber diet, and prune growers positioned their fruit as the better-tasting fiber alternative. By the 80s, North Americans were fiber-obsessed, and prune shipments made unprecedented gains. But studies showed

that younger generations were reluctant to eat prunes. They associated them with the elderly. Words like old, dried up, and constipated came to mind. That was a bit of a problem because if prunes couldn't win

over the next generation, future sales would shrivel up. The prune board, and yes, there is a prune board, then commissioned studies to look into how they might reposition the fruit. If younger people had negative associations with prunes, perhaps they needed a name change. So the board put out a survey to determine

if people were more likely to buy a product called dried plums. Prunes were perceived as wrinkled and dry, but plums were thought of as soft and chewy. 70% said yes. So the prune board lobbied the FDA to change the official name from prunes to dried plums. In 2000, their request was granted. The prune board was so happy,

it changed its name to the California Dried Plum Board. Next, they embarked on a $10 million marketing campaign to rebrand the fruit. They developed a humorous multimedia campaign called the, quote, Witness Re-Identification Program

to announce the top-secret news that fruit that had been living under an assumed name, prunes, were really dried plums. And as with so much food marketing, one of the key strategies was to create recipes. So, the board partnered up with prominent chefs and influencers to create dishes and sampled them with reporters and food writers. The campaign garnered over 560 million media impressions and increased sales by 5.5% in the first year. It was the first sales spike the board had seen in six years. But the rebrand did come with one amusing footnote.

When the board tried to change the name prune juice to dried plum juice, the FDA rejected it. They felt that the phrase dry juice was an oxymoron and would confuse the public. Cracked Magazine later called it one of the most audacious requests in the history of food. But it audacious requests in the history of food.

But it's a lesson in the powers of perception. Outside of North America, prunes are consumed by people of all ages. In Japan, they're even considered a miracle fruit. Only here in North America did they struggle against a major constipation stereotype, making them ripe for a rebrand. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. 40 years ago, the carrot industry was on decline. It was a wasteful business with supermarkets routinely turning away product that wasn't perfect. They expected carrots to have shelf appeal, adhering to a particular size, shape, and color. This frustrated a farmer named Michael Urosik, because to growers, that often meant as much as half the harvest would have to be thrown away or processed for animal feed. But Urosik had a thought.

What if he could turn those rejected carrots into something more appetizing? So he began peeling the misshapen carrots and cutting them up into uniform 2-inch little carrots. He put these little carrots in bags and rechristened them baby carrots. Buyers loved them. Baby carrots were a huge hit. Urosik's invention transformed the carrot industry.

Growers began sowing three times more carrot seeds per acre because when densely packed together, they would grow long and skinny, giving farmers the maximum number of two-inch cuts. People loved the convenience of the product. No peeling, washing, or cutting required. Carrot consumption doubled, and profits soared. But after a decade of steady growth, sales into the millennium went flat.

Nobody knew why. Until a man named Jeff Dunn undertook a research study to get to the bottom of it. Dunn was a top executive at Coca-Cola, overseeing all Coke's North and South American sales. Then, he left to become the CEO of a juice, dressing, and carrot company called Bolthouse Farms. Bolthouse depended on carrot sales,

as they sold nearly a billion pounds of carrots a year to various supermarket labels. D'Hun's studies showed that people were buying just as many carrots as they were before, but because of the recession, they were going back to buying the full-sized variety and were putting them in the bottom of the fridge in the drawer of death.

Bolthouse had never marketed their baby carrots before. They didn't need to. Until now. So they set out to hire an agency to put together a campaign. But all the agency pitches focused on the health benefits of carrots and positioned them as the anti-junk food, which was a waste of marketing money. People already knew that carrots were healthy.

Bolthouse needed a bigger idea. But one agency named Crispin Porter came back with an interesting concept. To position baby carrots not as the antidote to junk food, but as the junk food. Upon closer inspection, baby carrots did share many traits with popular junk foods. They were orange, crunchy, dippable, and came in a bag. The key would be to make them cool. Dunn loved the idea. He understood the junk food business from his time at Coke. So Bolthouse launched a $25 million campaign with the theme, Eat Em Like

Junk Food. They created a series of over-the-top winking junk food style TV ads. Brought to you by a bunch of carrot farmers. Endow us the most tasteful of your taste buds. Baby carrots, baby. Feel that feeling.

You know the feeling. Overt sexual innuendo. Endows the most tasteful of your taste buds. You already said that. Oh, baby carrots. Now in chic junk food packaging. They even installed baby carrots into vending machines in high schools. The campaign was a big success.

Sales jumped 13%. It's a fascinating story. At a time when most unsightly vegetables go to waste, ugly carrots were not only cut into tiny pieces, but sold at a premium. All it took was a slight name change from carrots to baby carrots, thanks to one farmer who kept his eyes peeled for an opportunity. Just as air can be conditioned,

so too can our food choices. Often, it comes down to perception. We perceive a prune to be a shriveled dish for the elderly, yet a dried plum is a welcome treat. An alligator pear sounds repugnant, but pass the

avocado. If you saw a photo of a menacing Patagonian toothfish, you'd agree it was aptly named. But hands up if you've ever paid a small fortune for Chilean sea bass. Food marketing is a delicate trade. The taste of a food often has nothing to do with its success. More often than not, we drink the label

and chew the marketing. Gnarly, misshapen carrots would never be allowed into a supermarket. Yet baby carrots made from Gnarly, misshapen carrots would never be allowed into a supermarket. Yet, baby carrots made from gnarly carrots are sold at a premium. Fifty years ago, Chinese gooseberries had a communist undertone. Today, kiwi fruit has a delicious overtone. That's the power of a well- chosen name. Sometimes, the practice is questionable. Other times it introduces us to a delicious food we would have otherwise ignored. It all goes to prove the age-old theory.

It's not the steak, it's the sizzle. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Under the Influence was recorded in the Airstream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Ullman. Research, Jillian Gora. Co-writer, Sydney O'Reilly.

Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Follow us on Facebook for some bonus content. See you next week. This episode brought to you by... Baby carrots, baby. What's up, Doc? By the way, feel free to peruse the Under the Influence shop. We've got some fun t-shirts that will fit you to a tee. Go to terryoreilly.ca slash shop.

Every purchase supports the show, and we appreciate it. New year, new me. Every purchase supports the show,. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are.

So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.