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Abstract
This article examines the branding and marketing strategies of New Zealand Producers Boards which were established in the early 1920s to coordinate the export of butter and lamb to Britain. The brand ‘New Zealand’ featured prominently in the promotion of lamb exports to Britain, whereas much more emphasis was placed on the ‘Anchor’ brand for butter. Because the ‘Mother Country’ was by far the biggest single export market for New Zealand butter and lamb, the branding and marketing activities of the Boards emphasised the strong cultural affinity that existed between Britain and New Zealand. Drawing on the relevant branding and marketing literature, the Boards’ annual reports, and reports by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, we show that ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Anchor’ conveyed the fundamental message of a shared British identity.
Acknowledgement
We have benefitted from many useful comments made by referees. Dev Gangjee provided incomparable advice on the broader legal framework. The usual disclaimer applies.
Notes
1. We are grateful to Nicola Hedge (Arla Foods) for supplying this figure.
2. http://2012.effectivedesign.org.uk/pdf/2012/gold/4.1.9.pdf.
3. Clemens and Babcock, ‘Country of Origin’: 5; 7.
4. Emphasis added. Pawson and Brooking, ‘Empires’: 108; Jones and Mowatt, ‘National image’: 1266. Ironically, the latter are correct to argue that New Zealand’s well-established ‘green’ reputation undermined attempts to foster a country of origin for organic foodstuffs after the 1970s. We are grateful to a referee for this observation.
5. Belich, Replenishing the Earth, p. 447.
6. Ibid.
7. Higgins and Mordhorst, ‘Reputation’: 187–188.
8. Calculated from Annual Reports of the NZMPB and NZDPCB. The figures quoted for lamb are based on carcasses. After 1936, the lamb export data are reported in tons, so it is not possible to construct a meaningful series for the entire period 1923–1938.
9. Lopes, Global Brands; Duguid, ‘The emergence’; Simpson, ‘Selling to reluctant’; Bower, ‘Scotch whisky’; Jones, ‘Brand building’.
10. See, for example, Higgins, ‘Mutton dressed as lamb?’; Higgins and Mordhorst, ‘Reputation’; Liebcap, ‘The Rise’.
11. Higgins and Mordhorst, ‘Bringing Home’.
12. Report of the Imperial Economic Committee on the Marketing and Preparing for Market of Foodstuffs Produced in the Overseas parts of the Empire. Second Report, Meat: 7.
13. Higgins and Mordhorst, ‘Bringing home’.
14. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the marketing of Sheep, Mutton and Lamb in England and Wales. Economic Series No.29, London: HMSO, 1931: 91.
15. Constantine, "The Buy British Campaign”: 44.
16. Kenwood and Lougheed, The Growth: Table 4, p.30.
17. For New Zealand see Belich , Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders; for recolonisation, or ‘export rescue’ as a phenomenon in the Anglosphere generally, see Belich, Replenishing the Earth.
18. Times, 13 January, 1928:7. Jellicoe was appointed Governor-General to New Zealand in 1920.
19. Blanco-White, Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks: 18.
20. In Britain, ‘brands’ originally referred to the practice of producing a mark by burning. The word ‘brand’ was introduced by the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1883. Blanco-White, Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks: 21.
21. George, ‘Brand Rules’: 217.
22. Anholt, Competitive identity: 5.
23. Olins, quoted in Schultz, Antorini and Csaba, Corporate Branding: 28.
24. McCracken, Culture and Consumption: 76–77.
25. Kornberger, Brand Society: 60; 64.
26. McCracken, Culture and Consumption: 79.
27. Schooler, ‘Product Bias’.
28. Williams, Made in Germany.
29. Morello, ‘International product’: 287.
30. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Sheep, Mutton and Lamb in England and Wales; Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Dairy Produce, part II Butter and Cream.
31. Pharr, ‘Synthesising’: p. 34. By 2002, over 700 papers had been published on this subject; a recent search of Google Scholar using ‘country of origin’ appearing in article titles only yielded 3460 publications.
32. Kotler and Gertner, ‘Country as brand’: 252.
33. Steele, ‘New Zealand is Butterland’.
34. Papadopoulos, ‘What product and country images’.
35. Bickham, ‘Eating the Empire’; Thompson and McGee, Empire and globalisation; Regan-Lefebvre, ‘John Bull’s Other Vineyard’;.
36. Allen-Moore, ‘Selling empire’; Barnes, ‘Bringing Another Empire’.
37. Jaffe and Nebenzahl, National Image: 55; 93.
38. Jaffe and Nebenzahl, National Image: 25–26.
39. Jaffe and Nebenzahl, National Image: 26–30; Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch and Palihawadana, ‘The relationship’; Usunier, ‘Relevance’.
40. Ironically, the ‘Anchor’ brand is now owned by Arla Foods (previously Arla Foods Fonterra, AFF). AFF had imported ‘Anchor’ butter from New Zealand. But, in 2009, Fonterra sold its share in AFF. Subsequently, Arla switched the production of ‘Anchor’ butter from New Zealand to Britain. Prior to this restructuring, ‘Anchor’ butter was always produced in New Zealand. In contrast, ‘Lurpak’ is only produced in Denmark. We are grateful to a referee for this observation. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11173058.
41. Anholt, ‘Foreword’: 236.
42. Other brands do indicate geograhical origin – e.g. wine appellations such as Champagne, Cognac, but these appellations are owned by all producers within that region.
43. Brodie and Rea. Country of origin.
44. These are discussed in the next section.
45. ‘Certification marks are principally indicia of conformity of goods or services to particular standards stipulated by the proprietor of the mark … Certification may be in respect of geographical origin, material, mode of manufacture … The mark signifies that its proprietor vouches for the conformity of the goods ... to approved and often quantitative standards. To the extent that the standard goes to quality, the certification mark attests to attainment of an absolute level of quality’. Belson, Certification Marks: 20.
46. It should be emphasised that although ‘New Zealand’ indicates country of origin, it is not a geographical indication (GI). The latter indicates that produce derives its reputation, quality or characteristics from a specific geographical location. For example, ‘Champagne’ can only be lawfully produced in the Champagne region in France. GI’s were not defined as such until the TRIPS Agreement, 1995, although terms such as ‘appellation’ and ‘appellation of origin’ were well-established by the interwar period. Raustiala and Munzer, ‘The global struggle’: 342. We are grateful to a referee for this comment.
47. International registration of the name of a country as an appellation was not possible until the Lisbon Agreement, 1958. Registration of ‘New Zealand Lamb’, surrounded by a rosette, would have constituted a composite or figurative mark, not a purely word mark. Additionally, this mark would have acquired distinctiveness to indicate a trade source. We are grateful to Dev Gangjee for this explanation.
48. This observation does not conflict with the Danish butter industry because ‘Lurbrand’, not ‘Denmark’, was registered as a trade mark. Higgins and Mordhorst, ‘Reputation’: 196.
49. For a discussion of the legal and business issues involved in the campaign which led to the Trade Marks Act, 1875, see Bently, ‘The Making of Modern’: 3–41.
50. Trade Marks Registration Act, 1875, 38 & 39 Vict., Ch.91: s.10; Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1883, 46 & 47 Vict., Ch.57: s. 64.
51. The key point here is ‘secondary meaning’, which indicates that a geographical name is associated with the products of a particular firm and is not descriptive of the place. Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks: 253; 758–59.
52. Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1888, 51 & 52 Vict., Ch.50: s.64 (1) (e).
53. Sebastian, The Law of Trade Marks: 60. Subsequently, an act in 1905 permitted the registration of geographical terms which, in their ‘ordinary signification’, were not understood as denoting geographic places. Trade Marks Act, 1905, 5 EDW. 7. Ch.15, s.9 (4).
54. Blanco-White, Kerly’s, Law of Trade Marks: 4.
55. Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, 50 & 51 Vict., Ch.28: s.3 (1) (b). This Act repealed the more limited Merchandise Marks Act of 1862, and became the principal means by which governments could protect their national marks against misuse.
56. It has been argued that in the New Zealand meat industry, greater emphasis was placed on ‘collaborative links’ between entrepreneurs and the formation of networks whereas in dairy, the cooperative organisation became more important. Hunter, ‘Commodity chains’: 287; 300. We are grateful to a referee for this observation.
57. See, for example, Faber, Cooperation; Jensen, Danish Agriculture; Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Dairy Produce, part II Butter and Cream.
58. Ibid: 48.
59. Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 171.
60. See, Higgins, ‘Mutton Dressed As Lamb?’
61. New Zealand Dairy Produce Control Board, First Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, 31 January 1924– 31 July 1925: 10.
62. New Zealand Meat Producers Board, Sixth Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year ended 30th June 1928: 10.
63. Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 159.
64. New Zealand Meat Producers Board, Sixth Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year ended 30th June 1928: 23.
65. New Zealand Meat Producers Board, Tenth Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year ended 30th June 1932: 8. This intensive marketing campaign simultaneously addressed two questions which have featured in the country of origin literature: do consumers notice origin information? And, what origin information is available to consumers? Papadopoulos and Heslop, Product Country Images: 14.
66. Ibid: 6.
67. New Zealand Meat Producers Board, Tenth Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year ended 30th June 1932: 8.
68. Ibid.
69. Ward, A Command: 57.
70. New Zealand Dairy Industry Commission, 1934 New Zealand Dairy Industry Commission, New Zealand, 1934, p.34, quoted in Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 173.
71. NZ Dairy Produce Exporter, 30 January 1932: 18.
72. Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1934 Session I, H-30 Dairy Industry Commission, p.36.
73. NZ Dairy Produce Exporter, 30 January 1932: 18.
74. Though Messrs Joseph Nathan & Co., operating in New Zealand and Britain, maintained a packing factory in England for the use of factories that wished to sell their butter in pats. Stephens, ‘The processing’: fn.35: 676.
75. Ward, A Command: 56.
76. Barnes, New Zealands’ London, 173.
77. Webber, The Anchor Story: 4.
78. Evans, A History: 193.
79. Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1902 Session I, I-10, Frozen-meat Committee: Report, together with minutes of evidence and appendix, p.42.
80. Loach, A History: 93.
81. Ibid, p82.
82. NZ Meat Producers Board Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year Ending 30th June 1925: 6.
83. ‘Canterbury’ continued to be used by meat retailers like W and R Fletchers in their independent advertising e.g. Lincolnshire Echo, 16 July 1931: 5.
84. Ibid: 80.
85. Hayward, Golden Jubilee: 28.
86. Press, 5 November 1930: 16.
87. Press, 4 December, 1931: 12.
88. Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 162; 183.
89. NZ Meat Producers Board Eighth Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Year Ending 30th June: 16.
90. McCracken, Culture and Consumption: 79.
91. Times, 27 February, 1930: 11.
92. Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 172.
93. Ibid: 168–172.
94. Wolfe, Well Made: 8.
95. Ibid: 45.
96. The New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, New Zealand Dairy Group, 1919–2001.
97. Webber, The Anchor Story: 4.
98. New Zealand Dairy Exporter, 1 October 1932: .54.
99. Barnes, New Zealand’s London: 160.
100. Ibid: 171.
101. New Zealand Dairy Produce Control Board, Third Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, Wellington, 1927: 9.
102. There is a substantial literature explaining the formation of the EMB and assessing its impact. See, for example, Constantine, Buy and Build; Constantine, ‘Bringing the Empire’; Self, ‘Treasury Control’; Trentmann, Free Trade Nation.
103. Barnes, ‘Bringing Another Empire?’.
104. Ibid: 68–69.
105. ‘British Cloth in NZ’, H.S. Williamson, CO 956/145, PRO;‘NZ Serves Our Tables’, H.S. Williamson, CO 956/147, PRO.
106. The Times, 22 December 1926: 9.
107. Drummond, British Economic Policy: 67.
108. Constantine, ‘Buy British’: 57.
109. Publicity – Australian Trade Publicity reports, A2910/430/1/98 PT 5, Monthly Report No. 48, August, 1933, p.9, National Archives Australia.
110. Rooth, British Protectionism: p.238. The exercise of imperial preference complicates an assessment of the effectiveness of the advertising boards. We return to this later in the article.
111. UK imports almost double over the period 1923–1938, and we return to this point later.
112. Between 1931 and 1938, New Zealand accounted for 27.5 and 53.6 per cent of total UK butter imports and UK butter imports from the Empire respectively. The corresponding figures for Australia are 19.5 and 36 per cent.
113. Obtained from comparing Denmark and New Zealand shares of British imports during the 1920s and 1930s. Calculated from sources in Table .
114. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Dairy Produce, part II Butter and Cream: 47–62. In the pre-1914 period, there was no general requirement that imported products be marked with the country of origin. The major exceptions to this were if an imported article bore a trade mark which was identical with or similar to British trade mark, or if the imported product was embossed with an indication of geographic origin which was similar to a British locality. Irrespective of origin, British legislation (the ‘Butter’ and ‘Margarine’ Acts) stipulated that the term ‘butter’ could only be lawfully applied if it met certain standards of composition regarding water content and butter fat. This latter legislation was a response to concerns about misrepresentation of the composition of foodstuffs, not their origin. See, for example, French and Philips, Cheated not Poisoned’. We are grateful to a referee for this comment.
115. Empire Marketing Board, The Demand for Empire Butter: 14.
116. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Dairy Produce, part II Butter and Cream: 33. However, the same report noted that high-quality home-produced butter was found ‘only rarely’.
117. See, for example, Henriksen and ‘O’Rourke, ‘The transition’.
118. Empire Marketing Board, The Demand for Empire Butter: 28. A detailed discussion of price differentials in the butter trade during this period is provided in Higgins, Brands, Geographic Origin.
119. Imports from Eire were either infinitesimally small or not recorded.
120. Routh, British Protectionism: 213; 232; Perren, Taste, Trade: Table 4.7: 108.
121. This ranking of prices is confirmed by examination of Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics : Report on the Prices and Supplies of Agricultural Produce and Requirements in England and Wales. Various issues.
122. Calculated from Perren, Tastes, Trade: Table 5.2: 124; Imperial Economic Committee, Meat: Table 31: 48.
123. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Departmental Committee on the Distribution and Prices of Agricultural Produce: Final Report: 12–14; 27–29; 31; 39.
124. Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Act, 1928 (18 & 19 Geo.5. Ch.19); Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931 (21 & 22 Geo.V.c.42); Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo.V.c.31); Agricultural Marketing (No.2) Act, 1933 (24 Geo.V.c.1).
125. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Dairy Produce, part II Butter and Cream: 62–63.
126. Times, 17 December, 1934: 7.
127. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report on the Marketing of Sheep, Mutton and Lamb in England and Wales: 105.
128. Stephens, ‘The Processing and Marketing’: 653.
129. Clemens and Babcock, ‘Country of origin’: 6.
130. Florek and Insch, ‘The trademark protection’: 297.
131. Times, 12 November, 1923: 18. Similar sentiments applied to New Zealand lamb. Times, 9 January, 1925:8.
132. Clemens and Babcock, ‘Country of origin’: 10.