The Findus horsemeat crisis is a brilliant illustration of the importance of never losing site of the true essence of branding. You spend lots of money and effort on advertising, packaging, communications and can be tempted to think that this is what branding is about. Well yes in part but these are all tools in the service of ensuring that your brand is instantly recognisable and stands for certain clear values. The instant recognition can come back to bite you if you don’t obsess about the values. So for how long, assuming the brand even survives, will Findus be synonymous with Romanian sourced horse-meat dressed up as beef rather than reasonably priced good quality basic food?

In many ways they are the innocent party in that their testing discovered the horsemeat and their Luxembourg supplier was in turn misled by their supplier, but that won’t really cut it with consumers. Findus lost sight of the fact that ultimately they were responsible for the quality of their branded products. They should have been obsessing about their ingredients and spotted the substitution of horsemeat well before it hit the shelves rather than up to 6 months after. Lesson for brand owners, ensure you always deliver what your brand promises whether through your products, your people, your level of service, your language, your premises. Obsess about the reality of your brand and your communication will be a good investment.