Earth fountain had to pass stringent tests

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor

The search for a permanent name and identity for the Global Dairy Company was handled in-house for a cost of just under $250,000.

Fonterra Cooperative Group is the new name for the $12 billion New Zealand-owned company, which will rank ninth in the world when it forms after enabling legislation is passed in October.

The name, which will not be a brand name nor replace the existing exporting business units, New Zealand Milk and NZMP, is a composite of the Latin words "fon" for fountain and "terra" for earth.

It arose from brainstorming sessions begun six months ago which produced an initial haul of 500 possible titles.

The project was led by Park Beede, the general manager of marketing for Mainland Products, the domestic market subsidiary of Kiwi Dairies.

Kiwi's merger with New Zealand Dairy Group and their integration of the Dairy Board will give rise to Fonterra.

Yesterday, the company said the name search had cost around $220,000, excluding time spent on the project by industry executives. Legal fees and trademark searches cost $150,000; logo design, at $60,000; market and shareholder testing, $10,000.

Dr Rick Starr, Auckland University senior lecturer in marketing, described the cost as very reasonable.

Companies had spent $100,000 to $200,000 just on name generation or graphic design.

The national museum Te Papa spent $300,000 developing its name and thumbprint logo, and a $2.3 million rebranding exercise for Work and Income NZ included $880,000 for developing a corporate identity and $90,000 for a name and logo which had to be abandoned when found to too closely resemble another organisation.

GlobalCo chairman John Roadley said yesterday that the name - already on the internet at www.fonterra.com - would initially mean little to shareholders, staff and the wider public.

"Our challenge is to ensure Fonterra means something special to our shareholders, our staff and all New Zealanders within our first year."

Care had to be taken that the name was not offensive in any language or already prominently in use internationally.

"At the end of that process, the board saw Fonterra as being associated with natural purity and the quality of products that flow from our land, while Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd tells the world that we are a cooperative and proud of it," Mr Roadley said.

Fonterra - like its Dairy Board predecessor - will operate in 120 countries, employ 20,000 people, earn more than 20 per cent of the country's export receipts and generate 7 per cent of its GDP.

Mr Beede said the name project began with three key criteria: that it be a professional and a global identity suitable across a variety of world regions; that it be unique but stand for something; and that it have an identity and imagery with roots in wholesome and natural nutrition.

The initial 500 names were whittled down to a short list of a dozen from which two stood out. The first pick proved to be too close to another trademark and that left only Fonterra, said Chicago-born Mr Beede, who described the project as the most awesome experience of the many branding exercises he had undertaken.

"We accept that it is a leap from where the industry has been and from expectations."

Dr Starr said that although a name linked to New Zealand could be valuable, a lot of Fonterra's global competitors, such as France-based Danone, avoided explicit country-of-origin imagery.

"[The choice] is comparable with what their competition is doing. There is no free lunch in this. You gain some things and you leave some things behind."

With the dairy industry forming alliances from Israel to Mexico it made sense not to have a name linked to a single country.

"What they have is the opportunity to build an equity, an image around the new name that nobody else has."

Dr Starr said it had been difficult for at least 25 years to find a unique company name, or brand. For instance, car manufacturers long ago found that the names of every attractive city, including Paris, Monte Carlo and New York, were already taken.

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