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KFC has changed its logo and announced that it will stop using trans-fats by some time next year. The rebranding exercise has seen their usually chubby Colonel Sanders undergo some extensive facial surgery, probably involving botox injections into his forehead, lips and chin with some hardcore liposuction on his cheeks and chins.

The KFC press release is more focused on the addition of an apron to the logo:

The apron symbolizes the home-style culinary heritage of the brand and reminds customers that KFC is always in the kitchen cooking delicious, high-quality, freshly prepared chicken by hand, just the way Colonel Sanders did 50 years ago.

From the way they talk about their food you would think they are a reputable restaurant! Has anyone been to a KFC recently? They are even worse than McDonalds!

Recent healthy eating trends have seen an onslaught of new food brands hit the market that claim to be healthier than a morning run, we have snacks made from oats and microwave meals that will solve all of your health problems and still only take 60 seconds to ‘cook’.

But one small chain of grocery stores has decided to step in and help customers judge for themselves whether or not those OatDonuts really are healthy. The chain is Hannaford Brothers which is based in New England and says it is responding to consumer confusion regarding the health claims made on food labelling.
The store has created its own rating system for assessing the nutritional value of food products and has labelled over 27,000 different items with zero to three stars in its new ‘Guiding Stars’ program.

But what this new concept in food labelling reveals is that even when the regular food label says it�s healthy, this is not actually true in thousands of cases. One example is V8 vegetable juice which is promoted as being a healthy drink but in reality its high salt content makes it an unhealthy drink. If you want to get the benefit of vegetables then there is no reason for it to come with the drawbacks of salt. The same goes for Campbell�s �Healthy Request� Tomato soup which again has way too much salt to be classed as a genuinely healthy meal.

Out of all the products rated in the Guiding Stars system, 77% received zero stars and many of those included ranges which are marketed as being healthy. The problem ranges from Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen meals to basics such as whole milk.

You might ask yourself how do these companies get away with using misleading food labelling, what about the FDA? Well the wording used is crafted in such a way that it does not directly mislead people, they just focus on the good points and leave the bad points hidden in the nutritional facts chart. A fruit yoghurt may be 97% Fat Free(!) but it will also contain more sugar than a can of coke, the same goes for your favourite high vitamin cereal.

The real issue here is not regulation because whatever rules the FDA introduces, the food companies will always take them to the extreme and find someway of profiteering. The way to tackle this issue is for consumers to beware of BS and be able to separate facts from misleading marketing claims.

As long as people buy into the health claims made by food companies then the trend will continue. It will probably get a lot worse as the medical and food industry mutate to offer us pizzas that will lower your cholesterol and donuts that will give your grandaddy an erection.

Source: NYTimes.com

The business of branding in Japan probably creates some of the most unique imagery in the world and hopefully we will be bringing you some examples here as time goes by. A nice place to start is this coffee drink that seems to promise more than just a caffeine boost, ‘Deepresso’ is owned by Coca-Cola and is part of a general trend of brand names that appear strange to western minds.

Hopefully it won’t give any ideas to the pharmaceutical companies who make anti-depressants. At least we’ll know what to expect if Eli Lilly ever merges with Coke.

Source: JapanVisitor.blogspot.com

This Perlodent toothpaste ad finds a good niche by targeting people who have rotting teeth because they often have the urge to buy coke at vending machines. The mouth is a bottle opener and suggests that people with strong teeth would be able to open a coke bottle with their front teeth. Not sure if this is real, but it makes a good point.

Source: AdArena.blogspot.com

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is to hold a conference for health ministers at the end of the month where it will urge them to sign up to an anti-obesity charter stating that children should not be “exploited” by food companies. The main policy aim is to ban advertising for unhealthy foods aimed at children and adolescents, the WHO says “Special attention needs to be focussed on vulnerable groups such as children and adolescents, whose credulity should not be exploited by commercial activities.”

Norway and Sweden have already put a TV ban into force and France imposes health warnings on any junk food ads. But the WHO points out that advertising on the internet and mobile phone text messaging is largely unregulated and must also be part of any new regulations.

It is well known that advertising companies use child psychologists to help manipulate the desires of the children beyond the influence of their parents. Financially it is very successful because it works. It is very subtle and starts as soon as kids can recognise images, and that really is a huge challenge for parents today. It is up to the governments of the world to ‘tip the balance’ away from junk food corporations in favour of responsible parents. It is not the first time in history that companies have exploited children for financial gain, think chimney sweeps and child labour.

Banning junk food advertising aimed at children is the first step in curbing the obesity problem that is developing all over the world. The problem is also seeding itself in parts of the world that is still developing such as Eastern Europe where for every $100 invested in fruit and vegetable productions, another $1000 is invested in soft drink and confectionary.

If you want to know what a society that doesn’t have corporate junk food pushed down its neck looks like then Cuba is a perfect example. Cuba was subject to a United States embargo that banned all US companies from selling products in or to Cuba, this included food and medicines. This meant the fast food industry didn’t establish itself and Cuba had to look for its own ways of developing a food industry. The result is a society that eats food as nature intended, with little or no factory manufacturing. But the real measure of this lack of junk food is the fact that Cuba has a life expectancy rate that is higher than many western developed nations.

The WHO conference takes place on Nov. 15 in Istanbul and will be attended by ministers from over 50 countries.

Our favourite is Taco Bell’s Cheesy Gordita Crunch that looks so appealing in the advert, with its perfect cuts of lettuce and delicate cheese arrangement. Badfoodad.com points out the high expectations you might have after seeing the adverts and the photo of the actual item illustrates perfectly how crazy junk food adverts are.

Visit: www.BadFoodAd.com

McDonald’s has executed its latest corporate tactic in trying to convince the world that junk food is not junk by launching food labelling in New Zealand and Australia. The low key launch in these isolated markets is obviously a test launch as the company prepares itself for a worldwide launch of nutritional labelling.

The McDonalds cheeseburger is probably the ‘healthiest’ burger they have because it only weighs in at an unsatisfying 106 grams. But as the McDonalds nutritional label shows, you get 13.4 grams of fat which includes 6.4 grams of saturated fats. What they don’t show on their nutritional labelling is how much of the non-saturated fats are actually trans-fats which are the worst types of fat. We all know the real reason McDonald’s has taken this step is because its sales fell sharply in 2000 and its shareholders were demanding a change.

But McDonald’s is fully aware that their average burger loving customer is already addicted to eating their junk and probably doesn’t know how to understand percentages or can’t come to terms with data that isn’t telling them that burgers are nice. They will look at the label on their cheeseburger and notice that it only contains 26.5% of their daily intake of saturated fat, so they could get away with eating 3 more.

Visit: www.mcspotlight.org

Jamey Kirby, the drink’s British creator, says the name for the drink Cocaine, came to him in the middle of the night. He describes the drink’s taste as a “fruity, atomic fireball”.

The smart thing about this drink is that they have gone further than just the ‘Cocaine Energy Drink’ branding, they have a second USP which is the 280 milligrams of caffeine per can. There is currently no other drink on the market with a caffeine count to match. Find out what 280mg does to you here.