Who to trust?

How fragile is trust? Everywhere you turn, there’s another lie exposed. I don’t think there are more liars today, it’s just easier to expose them. People now have the power to combat those that mislead, helping others wade through the din of marketing noise. There’s a new generation of muckrakers helping us decipher fact from fiction.

In the last post, I referenced an NY Times article about a supermarket chain that has adopted a nutrition ranking system. Hannaford Brothers of New England shows the courage to take on those who supply its livelihood with its “Guiding Stars” program. The goal is to help its customers eliminate any confusion regarding manufacturers’ health claims. The one to three star rating identifies good, better, and best relative to criteria set by an advisory panel of nutritionists and one doctor. A 3-star food has “more vitamins, minerals and/or whole grains and less trans fats, saturated fats, cholesterol, added sugars and/or added sodium.”

What’s most interesting about this Guiding Stars program is that Hannaford is NOT a “natural” grocer like Wild Oats or Whole Foods. For its 150 stores, it chooses to carry the wide array of products found in most grocery stores. In fact, 77 percent of the 27,000 products Hannaford evaluated are awarded no Guiding Stars at all.

By drawing attention to the healthy products, Hannaford is curating in a way that proves it has the customer’s best interest at heart. And, the chain is doing so with objectivity. So much so, that it has faced criticism from the very brands it sells:

''We don't like the idea that there are good and bad foods out there, and these sort of arbitrary rating systems,'' said John Faulkner, director of brand communication at the Campbell Soup Company. The Healthy Request line of soup, he said, was ''aligned with the government definition of what healthy is.''

A lot of brands meet only the very minimum standards provided by the government–a government heavily lobbied by food manufacturers. For a major chain to take such a definitive stand is just more evidence that the curator effect is radically changing how companies relate to their customers.

Food manufacturers are in a tough spot at the moment. As they race to pull out all the science-driven ingredients developed for the convenience generation, they expose themselves as the culprits. If hydrogenated fats are so bad, then why have they used them for so long? The answer? Shelf life. And, that’s the other problem these companies face. Current distribution processes account for very long shelf lives. Manufacturers can ship far and wide and load retailers up on promoted items for long periods. Time’s been on their side.

But times are changing. So companies like Pepsico retool existing products while also developing and buying brands that cater to the monumental shift in consumer attitudes. These brands carry none of the parentage of the manufacturer. Small and authentic now trumps large and omnipotent.

I suspect the most trusted brand names in 10 years will either be tiny, obscure brands at the moment or ones which don’t even exist yet. Undoubtedly, certain mega-brands will decline as curators help us distinguish between truth and smoke screen (again, please see Richard Edelman’s mea culpa).

The power is now in the hands of the retailers and the consumers. And curators like Hannaford will multiply, exposing us to long hidden truths about what we’ve been eating. Companies that embrace the shift to transparency will be the winners. So, big companies are doing what they can to act and think small.

Take Pepsico. Recently they developed and started selling a new beverage in Whole Foods called Fuelosophy, but of course the product label makes no mention at all of Pepsi’s parentage.

Here’s what our good friend Steve Gundrum, ceo of Mattson, told AdAge:
(NOTE: only subscribers can view the full article)

"Every company I work with is designing products distinctively different than regular grocery products to appeal to the natural-foods channel," said Steve Gundrum, president-CEO of product-development firm Mattson.

To do so, giant marketers need to change their thinking. Mr. Gundrum said Whole Foods is "not a reseller of branded package-goods like other retailers. They're really a curator of brands and products that fit their consumers' lifestyle" -- which means consumers trust products carried at Whole Foods and are willing to pay far higher prices for them.

Another example of the retooling of existing brands, are Pepsi’s Tostitos. On the packaging of two of its 13 types of Tostitos (the Blue and Yellow Corn Restaurant Style chips), Pepsi screams “NATURAL” across the top in big letters. But if you take a closer look at the nutritional content, you’ll see that the product delivers 6 grams of fat in every ounce (that’s 10% of the recommended daily allowance—just for a bag of chips!).

How can a simple consumer make any sense of so many nuanced product choices and arcane nutritional claims?

Well, Pepsico itself is seemingly lending a hand. It has developed what appears to be similar to the Hannaford Guiding Stars program. As part of its Smart Spot program, the company applies a green “Smart Choices Made Easy” graphic on dozens of its products. The company is also completely transparent about the criteria necessary to achieve a Smart Spot. There are three criteria, and the most important aspect of these criteria is that each is separated by “or” not “and.”

The Smart Spot criteria for food is:

Contains no more than 30% of calories from fat, no more than 1 gram of saturated fat and zero trans fats, contains no more than 60 mg of cholesterol and 480 mg of sodium, contains 10% or more of Daily Value (DV) of one or more of the following: Vitamin A, C, iron, calcium, protein, or fiber, and contains no more than 25 percent of calories from added sugar unless the product contains 10 percent DV of fiber*,

or

delivers a functional benefit via natural or fortified ingredients proven to be efficacious,

or

is reduced in calories, fat, sugar or sodium by at least 25% compared to base product or other appropriate reference product*

*Includes review by nutrition technology group

Again, the magic is in the conjunction OR. The third criterion essentially translates to: “we tell consumers this product is a nutritionally smart choice simply because we sell something that’s significantly worse.” As long as there’s a more evil counterpart, the real nutritional criteria go out the window (not that 480 mg of sodium is so great – you have to be at 140 mg to be called Low Sodium.

So, here are a few “smart choices” with their ingredient statements:

Gatorade® Endurance Formula Instant Mix:
SUCROSE, DEXTROSE, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM CITRATE, MONOPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, NATURAL LEMON AND LIME FLAVORS WITH OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS, CALCIUM LACTATE, CALCIUM SILICATE (A FLOW AGENT) MAGNESIUM OXIDE, YELLOW 5.

Cap’n Crunch’s Swirled Berries® Cereal
CORN FLOUR, SUGAR, OAT FLOUR, MALTODEXTRIN, BROWN SUGAR, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL AND/OR COCONUT OIL, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, MALIC ACID, SODIUM ASCORBATE, RED 40, NIACINAMIDE*, REDUCED IRON, ZINC OXIDE, YELLOW 5, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BLUE 1, YELLOW 6, THIAMIN MONONITRATE*, BHT (A PRESERVATIVE), PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE*, RIBOFLAVIN*, FOLIC ACID*, WHEY.
* ONE OF THE B VITAMINS.

Baked Cheetos® Crunchy Cheese Flavored Snacks
ENRICHED CORN MEAL (CORN MEAL, FERROUS SULFATE, NIACIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, AND FOLIC ACID), VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN, SOYBEAN OR SUNFLOWER OIL), WHEY, CHEDDAR CHEESE (CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES), SALT, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, MALTODEXTRIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, DEXTROSE, MALIC ACID, DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SOUR CREAM (CULTURED CREAM, NONFAT MILK), ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, BETA-CAROTENE, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, LACTIC ACID, ARTIFICIAL COLORS (INCLUDING YELLOW 6), AND CITRIC ACID. CONTAINS MILK INGREDIENTS.

Yum.

What’s so smart about consuming those ingredients?

Hannaford has a handle on the Curator Effect and will be a force in bringing about positive change. The manufacturers will whine and continue with the faux-healthy adjustments to their products, but the shift is real and more companies should have the courage to lead the change rather than obfuscate and mislead. In fact, as Hannaford demonstrates, this strategy can differentiate a company by deepening brand meaning and trust.

Age of Authenticity

We’ve entered the age of authenticity. Marketers can no longer rely on consumers believing what they hear. The curator effect cuts both ways. We reward the sincere and expose the disingenuous.

So, what about the food industry’s trend toward healthier products? I fear that screaming “natural,” “organic,” or “multi-grain” gives consumers permission to indulge in these so-called healthier products. But, organic sugar is still sugar and natural junk food is still junk.
This is part of the dark side of the organic trend. It’s great that toxic chemicals are being pulled out of our food supply. But let us not allow “organic” to become synonymous with healthy as it will fuel consumption of those disingenuous brands that are merely waving the organic flag and wrapping themselves in deceiving labels.

The good news is that, as people curate on behalf of each other, brands that obfuscate the truth can be easily exposed. Recently, Wal-Mart’s PR firm, Edelman, was uncovered as the true players behind the Working Families for Walmart blog. The “wiki” nature of the world these days quickly rights wrongs as evidenced by Richard Edelman’s mea culpa. The effect of the curator teaches these companies important lessons.

You can’t fake authenticity. This doesn’t mean a brand is doomed if it doesn’t have a real Ben and Jerry behind it, but it’s increasingly more important that it tell the truth. Sounds silly to say, but truth hasn’t been a plentiful commodity in the marketing world. The old school holdouts that sprinkle a few whole grains into its product and scream “MULTI-GRAIN” will be found out and, if justice is served, tarred and feathered by the visible persuaders.