Sara Lee cakes rebranded under processed meat

Even as a Canadian, whose crappy frozen cakes usually carried the McCain brand, I knew Sara Lee's slogan "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee!"

The double negative was a stroke of genius, one of the few times it actually (as our English teachers always contended) created a positive.

Well, no more. According to Business Insider:


Sara Lee Corp. told investors today that it will change its name to Hillshire Brands Co. (ticker symbol "HSH") in an attempt to buoy falling sales of its packaged meat products Wednesday.

Hillshire? The sausage brand?

Well, yes. Apparently the frozen cake business hasn't been doing too well, and bringing the sweet late night freezer raid bait under the salty, questionably-harvested meat brand is going to help.

Best of luck with that. Because nobody doesn't like mechanically separated pork...

Marketing Big Meat

Mother Jones recently ran an interesting exclusive: branding and packaging pages from a draft marketing plan fror Sara Lee about how they could reposition Hillshire Farm deli meats as a more sustainable and healthy option.

The scanned document looks like it was nicked from a recycling bin, but it's worth reading just for gems like this:

Give it up for pepper!

And this:

Good job, bees!

This off-the-cuff, conversational style is supposed to represent a new era of transparency and sustainability  in megameat.

Well, aspiring to transparency and sustainability anyway. And buying up small farms so that their newly-pluralized brand name actually means something.

It's good, though, that consumer pressure is forcing big processors into at least wanting to be seen as wholesome and small.

They also want to break into the food snob market by developing two new premium brands, "Smith & Smith" and "Flat Iron Ranch".

"Size of the prize"? I'm amazed that agency people can present that to a client with a straight face. But they also committed the following atrocities:

I am so ashamed of my industry right now.

Does this look into the marketing minds behind Big Meat surprise you? Disappoint you? Or just confirm what you already suspected.

This kind of rebranding, dressing factory-processed meat in a neighbourhood butcher's apron, is happening throughout the packaged meat sector.

But the big question is, how much marketing spin are you prepared to swallow?

And note to self: shred all draft marketing plans.