Dialogue: Fonterra - good choice but reasoning questionable

By GUENTHER MUELLER-HEUMANN*

The meaning of a brand name, or its parts, is often cited as a justification for its use. But it is virtually irrelevant. Most people seeing the name "Fonterra" for the first time will have no idea where it comes from. A small number will vaguely feel that "terra" has something to do with earth.

The main value of Fonterra is not its intellectual meaning, but what it sounds like, what abstract associations it creates and whether it could have negative initial associations.

It will be a great name for the Global Dairy Company.

The next step is to give it a meaning in the minds of its customers and stakeholders, and build the brand image.

In fact, it would be bad for our great international dairy company if the meaning of Fonterra was forever restricted to the roots of the word. The ultimate image will, it is to be hoped, be much bigger and wider.

It is like language.

We are able to communicate because we associate something with a certain combination of letters which, by themselves, are meaningless. And the meaning of such letter combinations may be very different in different circumstances. "Award" means something quite different in the context of wage settlements from what it means in the "Prince Philip Awards".

If meaning was important, Montana would not sell one bottle of wine because "Montana" is a state in the United States. Montana is also Yugoslav for mountain(s) - the source of its use here by the Yugoslav wine pioneers who saw the Waitakeres.

And if meaning was really important, "Anchor" - one of Fonterra's key brands - would have been doomed from the beginning as a brand for milk products.

The root of the "Cervena" brand is also marketing-intellectual rather than marketing-practical. The Game Industry Board website says "The Cervena name reaches back to historical origins to give new meaning to a cherished heritage.

"It comes from a combination of the Latin cervidae, meaning deer, and venison (which originally meant 'hunting' in Latin, but over time has come to mean deer meat in general)."

Who cares? What is important is that both Fonterra and Cervena (also Zespri without any meaning at all) are good-sounding names.

Advertising people love to pretend that they make brand images. That is less than a half-truth.

Brand image is not just made by advertising but by everything that a company communicates to the customer: the packaging, the product quality, the publicity, the way its phones are answered and what its trucks look like on the road.

I saw an incredibly dirty truck recently from "the real fresh food people". Can so dirty be fresh?

What is also important, and the Fonterra people obviously took care in this, is that the name can be used in many languages and jurisdictions.

The history of international branding is littered with names that confused when taken from one language to another. There was the Italian Fiat car brand "Nova", which next door in Spanish meant "No Va" or "not go".

The Japanese had a milk drink "Calpiss", and there still is the famous French lemonade brand "Pschitt". Also confusing is Durex, an adhesive tape in Australia and a brand of condoms here.

Fortunately, as the Dairy Board has found out, the mind of the consumer is compartmentalised. The image of Anchor, a great beer brand in Singapore, does not spill over to Anchor milk powder or butter.

When one sits down at a Yamaha grand piano, one does not feel that "this instrument is very racy" because of Yamaha motor bikes.

New Zealand also has its fair share of ill-conceived "brands" such as "kiwifruit" - when only we in New Zealand, the Aussies, and some older Poms and Canadians associate "Kiwi" with New Zealanders.

Back in the 1980s Europeans started to drop the "fruit" from "kiwifruit", presumably because they don't call an orange "orangefruit" or a banana "bananafruit".

I still have the cardboard tray lid with "Kiwis from Spain" which shocked me in a supermarket in Europe in 1983.

* Guenther Mueller-Heumann is Otago University emeritus professor of marketing

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

Dave Clark, design guru, Dave Clark & Associates:

I feel it does its job well. The typeface is nice and strong, reflecting, perhaps strong rural values. The colours the designers have used are also indicative of what one would imagine to be New Zealand colours - earth, sea and sky would be my interpretation of them. The logo doesn't remind me of any other device in a similar industry and gives me the impression of a rural industry device. It fits well into the category.

Harald Pohl, partner, Insight Communications:

It doesn't do much for me, although it's hard to say without seeing the original brief. But it was an amazing opportunity, and the consensus here seems to be that it's pretty nondescript and it might date quite quickly.

Philip Thoreau, patent attorney, Baldwin Shelston Waters:

As the name Fonterra carries with it "no baggage", the challenge for the company - to create a world-class reputation and a basis for international brand protection - will be easier. It's what the company does with the brand that's important.

Nicholas O'Flaherty, public relations director, Bullet PR:

It seems a pity that the name doesn't represent the values of freshness, healthiness or nutrition, as it could equally apply to a timber or mining company, really. But being a Spanish speaker and having lived in Latin America, I would say the name has an international flavour - it travels well.