Both Kraft and Hershey were interested in acquiring Cadbury’s. What do they both suggest to me? Cheese, Gromit, Cheese! Kraft ‘cos they make cheese, and Kershey because their apology for chocolate tastes of the stuff – if you think that’s unlikely try some and then tell me it doesn’t. So it seems Cadbury’s wasn’t going to escape the cheese monster one way or another.

Now there’s a big fuss, but is it justified? “What’s the worst that can happen?” Well, I think there are essentially two gaffs Kraft could make. Firstly, they could muck around with the recipe of our beloved Dairy Milk. Hands off! We don’t want it tasting of cheese, but we don’t want it “improved” into Belgian or Swiss chocolate either. Those guys think our British chocolate isn’t chocolate at all. If we wanted Belgian or Swiss chocolate, and sometimes we do, we’d buy some. Our Cadbury’s product is unique and we want it to stay that way.

Secondly, they could mess with the brand. Whatever the chocolate tastes like, you just ain’t going to enjoy is as much if it’s called Kraft. It will taste of cheese even if there’s none in it. Brands are about promises. Kraft promises easy to use cheese products, fine. Cadbury’s promises, well, not actually chocolate of course, but indulgence. You can’t get them confused.

It doesn’t really matter who owns the shares in the company, as long as the product tastes the same and the reassuring name is on the wrapper. Only time will tell if the new owners understand this.

Leave a comment to tell us what you think.

Alright, so that was the noughties. What will happen in the, er, whatever the next ten years are called. Never mind, the last ten years whizzed by so it will the twenties before we know it and we can start labelling the decades again.

But will we think of this time differently because it has no label? Naming isn’t just about differentiating one product from another; it affects how we feel about the product. If Chanel No.5 was just known by a chemical formula, it really wouldn’t seem to smell so sweet, to borrow from last month’s edition.

Surely we can think of something? Go on, give me your suggestions (via commenting), even if they’re a bit risqué, or do I mean naughty?

Happy New Year!

I once hid a client’s competitor’s product names in my client’s website so that my client’s site would come up in searches (at his request). My client soon received a very formal looking letter demanding he desist. He complied, but was pleased to have riled his competitor so effectively.

Now it seems that the Google equivalent is happening. It is selling brand names to rivals to use in Google searches. Interflora searches are delivering both Interflora ads and M&S flowers ads (try it and see).

So here’s a big problem if you’ve managed to build the leading brand, only to find others can piggy-back on your success in this way.

But is it any different from putting your carpet shop next the leading carpet shop in the shopping centre and hoping people will check you out when they come searching for the leader?

Should Interflora be getting their corporate knickers in a twist even if M&S’s Stuart “Rose” isn’t really coming up smelling of, well, roses on this one?

What do you think? Leave a comment to respond.