First, before I get hate comments on this, I have a dog and I love my dog. And dogs and cats dying from their very well known brand name pet foods is very serious business. But since I write about organizations in crisis, I am suggesting that the problem with the contaminated food will be resolved in due course, but the crisis of revealing that a great many different brands are coming from the same factory will hang around the industry for a long time.
Here’s an article from Ad Age that sheds light on this challenge.
Why is this a problem? Because the mantra of marketing has always been “differentiation, differentiation, differentiation.” It is pretty well known that fuel branded by a variety of different companies comes from the same refinery. After all, they all have to meet the same specs. However, the differentiation question is around the additives they add at the terminal. So the real brand differentiation question between Shell and Chevron for example is over the additives. If it weren’t for that, gasoline would be a true commodity (it is very close to that).
Pet food is a long ways from being considered a commodity. There are vast price differences and people paying much higher prices need to believe they are getting value. All the brands affected by this crisis are premium brands (which in itself a problem: Hey, I pay more, I should at least get a SAFE product!) but more importantly, any claims to differentiation have now been undercut by the realization that all these very different brands come from the same Canadian factory.
Here’s where crisis managers and heads of marketing or communication better get together. The crisis just undermined all kinds of brand strategy and brand building promotion. How will they deal with it? The additives strategy? Tell the world they opened their own factory? Of just quietly go back to business and hope everyone forgets that one big factory provides them and their competitors with the same products?
Crisisblogger 
July 10, 2007 at 11:40 pm
First of all the issue about contaminated pet food started after it was discovered that some Menu Food products for pets contain rat poison. The issue isn’t solved yet but the company concerned is doing all necessary actions to determine the origin and the source of this unwanted poison. This issue was sensationalized because the consumers then thought in advance that this same case is true for all pet food manufacturers.
The additives strategy is very common and prominent not only among gasoline brands but also among medicine brands. Coupled with popular celebrities in a very enticing TV advertisement, the new brand with additional additive undermines the older brand whose additive or ingredients weren’t revealed.
September 4, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Personally, I have been doing some research on dog food and the ingredients and quite frankly i’m appalled what we appear to be feeding our dogs. I’ve posted a page with a shocking dog food video report . If you are a dog owner you need to see this.
August 12, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
January 29, 2009 at 1:02 pm
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