Canada Adopts New Federal Food Safety Law

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has won the unanimous consent of the House of Commons for Canada’s new federal food safety law. With its earlier passage by the Senate, that means the Safe Food for Canadians Act, Bill S-11, now becomes law with the routine “Royal Assent.”

                                                                         
Unanimous votes among the 308 Members of Parliament (MPs) in Commons are not seen often in Ottawa and Canada’s multiple parties rarely agree on anything but the crisis at the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta helped bring unity for the food safety law sought by the Prime Minister’s government.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the new federal law:

• makes food as safe as possible for Canadian families;
• protects consumers by targeting unsafe practices;
• implements tougher penalties for activities that put health and safety at risk;
• provides better control over imports;
• institutes a more consistent inspection regime across all food commodities; and strengthens food traceability.

Additionally, CFIA outlined the improved food safety oversight, better legislative authority, and improved access to international markets as advantages of the new law. Specifically the agency said the new law promises:

1. Improved food safety oversight to better protect consumers/New prohibitions against food commodity tampering, deceptive practices and hoaxes
2. Streamlined and strengthened legislative authorities/Modernization and simplification of existing food safety legislation
3. Enhanced international market opportunities for Canadian industry

Crowd sourcing exemplifies social media at its best:

Social media is a valuable tool to solicit and engage potential customers - let them create and pick the next Big Thing. Think of crowd sourcing as an online tool or think tank of ideas followed by a social media vote for the best idea.  Rewarding the winner can really drive success.

Examples are endless: Samuel Adams asked their consumers to create a new crowd sourced beer. Arizona Iced Tea is asking consumers to create its next flavor.

 

 

 

Outside of the US, McDonald's has crowd sourced burger recipes and Lay's create-a-chip contests produced Caesar Salad flavored chips is Australia, Shrimp chips in Egypt Sausage-flavored chips in Poland.

Lay's is now launching a $1 Million winner campaign through it's "Do us a Flavor" Facebook vote.  Facebook is changing its rules with the familiar "Like" button being replaced with an "I'd Eat That" button. Lay's will select three finalists - all of which will be developed into flavors and sold in early 2013. Then a final Facebook vote will decide on a winner.

Food for thought: What a tremendous way to create a buz with a head-to-head flavor showdown.  Try it!

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 6

9. The government can be your partner.  There are many funding programs available in Canada and the US as cost sharing or tax incentives that can help you offset the huge costs of entering a market.  For example, INAC Services Ltd. can assist you in obtaining grants and interest free loans for export marketing, plant expansion, energy reduction, product development, R&D, employee training, human resource development and much more. 

                                                                          

10. There are angels out there.  Find a venture capital firm to get financing.  For example, Loewen & Partners Inc. is a privately-owned corporate finance firm serving business owners needing access to sophisticated corporate financial services.  Instead of taking a year to find money, with your eye off the ball and giving many often demoralizing presentations to inappropriate investors; you could outsource your financing needs to Loewen & Partners.  They can match your company  with the best investors at the right price, and all of this within a far shorter time frame.   Their focus is on high-growth firms that require any of the following services: Equity, Debt, and Mezzanine private placements; Growth financings; Management buy-outs; Recapitalizations; Strategic acquisitions; or Family business advisory services.

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 5

8. Tailor your product to the market you want to sell in.  By customizing Oreos to suit local tastes, Kraft Foods expects $1 billion in sales of the iconic cookies from markets such as China by 2013

Whether it’s green tea Oreos in China, a chocolate and peanut variety in Indonesia, or banana and dulce de leche Oreos in Argentina, a lot rides on Kraft’s efforts to develop alternatives to the iconic cookie-and-cream combination.   The 100-year-old sandwich cookie, a $2 billion brand, is going global in a big way.   Emerging markets will account for about half of Oreo sales this year, and over the past five years emerging markets including Asia and Latin America have been the major drivers of the brand’s growth.  Thanks to the overseas push, overall Oreo sales grew nearly 25 percent in 2011.

Kraft has tailored the cookie’s marketing to better resonate among local consumers.  In one Chinese commercial, a child gives a lesson in dunking (cookies, not basketballs) to former Houston Rockets star Yao Ming.   In a South Korean ad, a baby clutches an Oreo while nursing at its mother’s breast. Kraft says that spot was made by its ad agency only for an awards program.  However it's gone viral since its leak online.

Success outside mature developed markets is important for Kraft as it prepares for a spinoff of its snacks business later this year.  Given unexciting prospects in the U.S., the new company, which will be called Mondelez International, will focus heavily on emerging markets.

Oreos haven’t always been popular outside the U.S. Kraft struggled for years in China, for instance, and considered leaving five years ago.   The cookie “was spectacularly underperforming,” says Sanjay Khosla, Kraft’s President of Developing Markets.   One problem: Kraft offered Chinese consumers the same type of Oreos that it sold in the U.S. “There was a belief that what was good for the U.S. was good for the world,” Khosla says.

After surveys showed that Chinese consumers found Oreos too sweet, Kraft put Andrade to work coming up with a new formula to better suit local tastes. In India, Kraft encountered the opposite problem: The American-style cookie was too bitter, Indians told researchers. Adjusting for local preferences “isn’t a matter of just removing one ingredient,” says Andrade. “It’s about making sure you balance the flavors. You almost have to reconstruct the product.”

For Asia, Kraft also decided to jettison many of its dozens of brands and instead concentrate on a few important ones such as Oreo and Tang.   That simplification strategy makes sense in China, where many multinationals are trying to introduce their brands to middle-class consumers, says James Roy, a senior analyst with China Market Research Group in Shanghai.   “There’s too much noise in terms of how many brands there are,” he says.   “Those brands don’t have a history in China, and people get confused if you introduce too many things at once.

Kraft is trying the same approach in India. The company acquired Cadbury in 2010 and the following year started putting that name on Oreos in India, taking advantage of Cadbury’s well-known brand and extensive distribution network there.

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 4

7. Cross promote for better results.  One billion cans of Pepsi rolled out in May 2012 plastered with a most unlikely ingredient: Michael Jackson's silhouette.  Pepsi is trying once again to breathe serious life into the deceased King of Pop's global image in a move that has left some marketing experts aghast and others applauding.

The unexpected marketing announcement comes on the heels of a new, global partnership between Pepsi and the estate of Michael Jackson.   Pepsi has lost global market share to rival Coke the past year and is eager to grab some back with what it bills as a 25th anniversary celebration of Jackson's multiplatinum Bad album and tour.  Only time will tell the success of the campaign.

 

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 3

5. Be first to market if possible. Conventional wisdom says being first to market creates a competitive advantage.  Reality is more complicated.   Market opportunities are constantly opening and closing, and a hit today could be a dud a year earlier or a yawning "me too" business a year later.  You gain the advantage of locking in customers, suppliers or intellectual property.  Entrepreneurs also need to launch before an opportunity closes.

6.  Marketing is key - you need to attract and retain customers.  Mars, the company behind brands like Snickers, Pedigree, Whiskas and Skittles, was celebrated as the Advertiser of the Year at the Cannes Lions 2012 International Festival of Creativity.

Since Mars landed its first Cannes Lion in 1990, the company's commercials have won 77 Lions across categories, which include 11 Gold Lions and a Radio Grand Prix in 2007 for the Snickers "Hoedown" ad.

In making the announcement, Cannes Lions CEO Philip Thomas noted that Mars has won Lions for work in countries that include France, the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, South Africa, Portugal and Chile, among others. He said the festival’s recognition is “a testament to a company which truly embraces creativity and demands outstanding work from its agencies.”

Bruce McColl, the chief marketing officer at Mars, will accept the honors on June 23 during the film, film craft, branded entertainment & content, and titanium & integrated Lions awards. Mars works with Omnicom agencies BBDO and DDB.

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 2

3. Understand everything you market and post on line.  How could Coca-Cola have allowed anyone working for them to post a reference to a disgusting pornographic movie on a fourteen year-old girl’s wall – a movie that girl later searched for on the internet to find out what the obscure status update meant.

So where did Coca-Cola go wrong, and what can you do to avoid something like this happening to your own brand? The answer is quite simple.  Never, never allow any “social marketing agency”, no matter how edgy they seem and no matter how often they tell you that they’re “experts,” post or publish anything in your company or brand’s name without checking it first. 

4. You do not control the voting process.  Trying to control the outcome of a contest by disqualifying a charity you do not like (e.g., JPMorgan Chase & Company rejected Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project) or violating your own rules by giving preference to another (see Pepsi) will backfire.  The Pepsi Refresh Contest made a mistake by not following its own rules, but moving swiftly to acknowledge it, fix it, and moved on. This was failing informatively.

In fact, it might wipe out more than whatever was gained by organizing the contest in the first place.  In turn, the damage to your brand and reputation can be huge.