There is an advertising strategy that can only be described as “reputation repair.” It’s a risky gambit that involves publicly acknowledging that there are bad things being said out there about your company and its products, and trying to set the record straight.
Domino’s Pizza did it in the 2010s, with a TV ad blitz that basically promised customers better pizzas than the lousy ones it had been making. (It worked.) Now J.M. Smucker is trying the same thing with Folgers coffee.
“Folgers is an iconic American brand with an iconic jingle, but when it comes to coffee, their reputation is a bit stale,” reads a Smucker press release titled “Folgers Takes On Its Bad Reputation With Unapologetic New Advertising Campaign.” So they propose to liven it up with by playing up their historical roots in New Orleans. A TV spot features Joan Jett singing “I don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation” while a title reads “Allow us to reintroduce ourselves” over footage of a New Orleans-style jazzy mini brass band.
As far as I can tell, the knock on Folgers stems from a switch in the formulation that Smucker made in 2015. Coffee beans come in two types. Robusta beans are the less expensive kind. As the name implies, they grow relatively easily but have a bitter, overpowering taste. More expensive arabica beans, which are what all so-called specialty coffee is made from, have a much better taste and aroma, but they’re notoriously finicky about growing conditions – especially in the current era of unpredictable climate.
Folgers is a blend of robusta and arabica. They play up the arabica content with their “Mountain Grown” tagline; arabica grows mostly on mountainsides. But according to the blog Clearly Coffee, the blend changed in 2015, switching from 60% arabica and 40% robusta to the reverse.
“Some loyal Folgers drinkers became very upset when they tasted their beloved classic roast after the ratio change, and complained about the new blend on online product reviews, calling the new Folgers recipe bitter, and even downright bad,” the Clearly Coffee blog entry states.
Smucker isn’t directly addressing this situation in any way that I can see; the words “robusta,” “arabica” or even "blend" do not appear in its release. Maybe they think their new “unapologetic” attitude will make up for it all.
Maybe it will. But I think someone got sold a load of magic beans, and they weren’t arabica.
Pan Demetrakakes is a Senior Editor for Food Processing and has been a business journalist since 1992, mostly covering various aspects of the food production and supply chain, including processing, packaging, distribution and retailing. Learn more about him or contact him
