Truth Be Told

Is Your Food Playing Tricks On You? Blame It On Questionable Marketing.

- Pedrong Puti

A clever play on words, an image that delivers emotion and impact, a video that tugs on your senses—these marketing tricks can definitely do wonders for a brand. But push it beyond ethical barriers and you’re at risk of losing credibility and, consequently, your market’s trust.

With regard to questionable marketing, some say that as long as no laws are broken then everything is fair game. It is business, after all, and some companies are willing to do anything to get ahead of the game. It is a ruthless world and, oftentimes, players roll with the punches by engaging in an equally ruthless game. In all this, where does ethics come into play?

KILLING THE KIELBASA

Have you ever wondered why the prices of supermarket beef hotdogs, pork sausages, and longganisas are low? Turn the packet over and look closely at the list of ingredients to find out. There are some brands of beef sausage, for instance, that list chicken skin, chicken, vegetable starch, and whey or milk protein as ingredients. Yes, the sausage might actually contain more chicken than beef. In the case of some beef hotdogs, you are lucky if you find more than 25 percent of real beef in them.

One of the best examples of misrepresenting a traditional and national product is Polish kielbasa. In Poland, kielbasa actually means “sausage” and there are over 130 different kinds of it. As such, the producers should be confident enough to label the specific type of kielbasa they are trying to make and not use a generic term to cash in on the fame of Polish sausage. You cannot walk into a Polish store and ask for one kilogram of