AUSTRALIAN "BULLSHIT" AWARD 2008

Gloria Jean’s Coffees and nudie have joined forces in a co-branded new food product.

The Passion Mango Crash is exclusive to Gloria Jean’s Coffees and is the first time a blended cold drink made with nudie fruit is available on the market.

This is not innovation, this is a marketing ploy to get zombies to think nudie is some fruit growing guru enterprise and that the blended drink is a nudie made drink. This type of bullshit gets under my skin, Nudie buys fruit from others, Gloria Jean’s Coffees puts that fruit in a blender, labels it as nudie drink and sells it at a high price. This has to be awarded the "bullshit" prize of 2008, and we are only in January! If you want great choice head off to Boost juice or buy Boost juice bottled juice from your supermarket.

P&N have made an attempt on Golden Circle Limited, good to see that the Sydney-based, privately-owned fruit juice company stepped in the ring. To bad they lost, maybe some other time. 

Wow, it seems the European Cafe culture has contributed to the survival and growth of Australia's Springleaf Beverage Company. AMI (Australian Marketing Institute) are so impressed with Springleaf's marketing skills that they made the National Finals for “Best New Product”.

Hopefully Springleaf will continue to take market share from Coca Cola Amatil and combat the predatory buying habits of Coca Cola Amatil, like Golden Circle recently did.

Oh Coca Cola Amatil, I do not like you, never have and never will, your corporate culture and hypocrisy is unmatched.

I wish Springleaf all the best, I might have to consider awarding awards of my own in the future.

Maybe an award (the straighty) for Aussie companies that finger Coca Cola Amatil.

Anti-Coke Australian comments via news.com.au 

No to another take over of a local idenity by a multi national. I second Andrews Spencer's sentiments (Comment No 4). I buy Golden Circle because it is a local company using locally grown produce. Will Coca Cola continue to support the local farmers and keep the profit local !!!!!!!! My preference is to buy Aussie made and owned which is becoming harder to do. Why is it that foreign owned companies can gain concessions and finacial incentives and many local companies are left high and dry in their time of need?

Another iconic Aussie product bites the dust. If there is a good side to sad tale, at least local people will get to keep their jobs even though most of the money will move off shore.

I think this is absurd but I think the industry is suffering a confidence complex and hence the attempt to self medicate themselves with awards. This initiative is very rare indeed, if you look around the world for leading examples very few come up. The French Juice and Beverage Awards?

Considering the size of their market, it is a drop in the ocean so egotistic overtones spring to mind. In my opinion their is no credibility with these awards. I would like to see the individual companies take their products and enter them in more far reaching and credible competitions.

The Mildura fresh juice is squeezed fresh daily from 100% Australian Valencia oranges, grown predominantly in the rich alluvial soils of the Curlwaa District, near Wentworth, New South Wales.

From humble beginnings in 1991(hand squeezing 50,000 litres per annum), Curlwaa Fresh now squeezes over 500,000 litres of premium juice products annually. Curlwaa Fresh tried over a 10-year period to have its products in major supermarkets.

Australian Distributors extract:

Country Breakfast Pty Ltd an Australian distributor delivers Curlwaa Fresh to Victorian Families.

Country Breakfast is a company which is owned and operated by a Victorian farming family.

They are the only dairy that control the whole business process, everything from milking the cows to delivering it to the front door. This is the freshest milk available of its kind in Victoria. They also give you a free cooler bag and deliver it to your door free of charge.

www.breakfastmilk.com.au

Another Distributor is the Food Marketing Group Pty Ltd, they endeavour to maintain a range of manufacturers whose products offer the independent supermarkets "a point difference".

www.foodmarketing.com.au

Note: No website available for Curlwaa Fresh.

The Naked Juice story began in 1983 when a young man delighted thirsty beachgoers by serving his juices towel-to-towel on the beaches of Santa Monica, CA.

Waking up early to seek out only the freshest fruits and vegetables in the produce markets of Los Angeles, he home-squeezed and blended his creations before heading to the beach with his juices and a backpack full of ice. His efforts brought forth rave reviews. Naked Juice caught on commercially starting with a small account in a grocery store right off of the beach, then a few more stores in town, then all over the City of Los Angeles.

Over two decades later, Naked Juice is a national brand that still employs the ideals it was founded on. From the very first piece of fruit we put in that original blender to right this second, this has been our mantra: We are dedicated to creating the best all-natural, 100% juices and juice smoothies, made from the best bare-naked fruits, with no added sugar and no preservatives - ever. Today, we also boost some of our smoothies with totally natural vitamins, minerals and herbs to help make your healthy life even healthier.

Just look for The Fruit Inside and The Boost Inside on the back of our bottles for all the particulars. Here are a few more pure and tasty facts about us: We proudly proclaim "A pound of fruit in every 15.2 oz. bottle." Wow, that's heavy. We produce and ship 6,000,000 bottles every month, nationwide. Top selling favorites: Green Machine, Protein Zone and Mighty Mango are the big three; followed closely by Blue Machine, Strawberry Banana-C and Berry Blast.

And Power-C is super popular during cold season. Every day, every Naked Juice employee gets a bottle of juice on the house. Hanging out on a beach towel is totally optional.

Source : Naked Truth

Copying Successful Overseas Business Brands

Which came first, the unique innocent drink concept or the copycat nudie drink brand?

Innocent Drink was hatched in the UK in 1998 , Nudie Drinks followed in Australia in 2002.

 "Tim Pethick developed a taste for fresh fruit juice with no preservatives, straight from the bottle while living overseas in the UK and US. When he got back to Australia in 1999, he found he had to make juices at home to feed his habit as there was nothing similar in the Australian market."

Source: www.abc.net.au

The Defence:

Critics accuse Nudie of being a copy of the Innocent brand of fresh fruit juices from the UK. Of these remarks, Tim is nonplussed. "I’ll be the first to admit that I draw inspiration from brands I’ve observed in the different markets I’ve been in the last 25 years.

But I don’t think you can say that nudie is a complete copy of any one or two brands" "I’m biased, but personally, I think we’ve done a better job as a brand than Innocent, or even the Naked brand of juices from the US, whom we’ve been compared to as well," he continues. "That’s simply because the intention was never to create nudie as just a juice brand, which they are, but I always wanted nudie to be an inspiration brand that would be able to stretch to other categories."

Source: www.brandchannel.com

My Verdict: Tim is a really nice guy, but I have to be on the side of the critics, nudie the brand was never portrayed as an all round brand that was not limited to just being juice, I failed to find any evidence of Tim mentioning this when Nudie was first established.

"I always wanted nudie to be an inspiration brand that would be able to stretch to other categories."

I believe he was in the UK and copied the innocent drink model, a small child like character that is in the nude, looks innocent enough, but the similarities are drawn. What does one do with a popular brand, they extend it to other categories, the healthy ones of course! So this gives a "boost" to the theory that many Australians gain so called "inspiration" from products and services overseas and rush back home to copy them and implement them asap.

Not so innocent range of nudie.

The innovators in the UK.

Case study links : Innocent drinks

“Innocent has been held up for six years as a shining beacon of what a brand can do. The writing on the packaging is engaging and charming and makes you believe in them, and it has taught the marketing community what can be done in a different way,” Ford says.

As a result, there have been copycats, but a large number of companies still fail to grasp the benefits of injecting a bit of personality into packaging. “There are loads of brands that are missing a trick. They need to engage you and make you feel like you’re having a relationship,” concludes Ford.

www.computerarts.co.uk

The website also takes a simple but powerful approach to words and writing style. A link to Innocent’s online gym is titled “I’m fat. Let me in.”

www.brandchannel.com

Mitchell also makes friends with customers in supermarkets. “I’m always going up to people and asking what they think of that flavour, or why they haven’t chosen us over a competitor. It‘s great to get direct feedback like that.”

timesonline.co.uk