Biscuit Tin Nonsense

Fluffy (with Walkers product placement)
taking tea in his office before Parliamentary Questions

Here we go. Scotland the Brand (or not as the case may be) is on our lips. Again!

There’s been plenty comment about supermarkets like Tesco and others putting the Union Jack on goods previously branded with the Saltire. Not to mention the National Trust for Scotland’s branding debacle when they tried to prevent the Scottish place name, Glencoe, from continuing to be used by a local clothing manufacturer. As it turns out, they own the name along with Culloden and Bannockburn.

It seems to me some kind of misappropriation is going on. I use the term ‘misappropriation’ because I don’t have a problem with that thing some call ‘cultural appropriation’. In relation to Scottish stuff, I really don’t mind lending our mythologies and identities to the wider world.

But ‘misappropriation’. How disrespectful. That’s another thing entirely…

The latest stooshie surrounds Walkers Shortbread (ah, Walkers, we’re nearly neighbours what with them being just over the hill from me here) who now sell a shortbread with the Union Jack in low relief in a Union Jack tin.

Union Jack Keepsake

I read on their blog that the offending biscuit tin - the Union Jack Keepsake - is but one of many. (Read more about that here.) Why, they’ve even launched a ‘Love Scotland Keepsake’ range, with a real nice tartan Nessie right there on the front to keep us all happy. For ‘Keepsake’ read F-F-sake, I should say.’

I mean, there’s an argument for any business marketing and branding with symbols of their choice. But, apart from demonstrating dubious design and marketing values by using a tartan-tat Nessie, you have to ask why, at a time like this, does a business choose to alter its national-flag branding? More than that, why go in a direction which can be interpreted as placing one above another (Union Jack over Saltire)? Why do that, presumably ignoring whatever market research might tell them about customer perceptions? I’d have thought they would have checked that out, don’t you?

Just as the Saltire brands the independence movement, as well as lots of manufacturers and retailers who acknowledge a Scottish customer base, using the Union Jack suggests another focus, either UK-wide, Unionist or even just English. Right now there are clear sensitivities, north and south of the border. So, when a branding change is proposed, I'd have thought any business with an ounce of nous would see how it could easily be interpreted in terms of the current economic and political climate. 

If there is a political dimension to, say, the Saltire in the Scottish independence context, there’s equally a political dimension to the use of the Jack on a biscuit tin. So why go there?

I’m also asking, why now? For me timing is more important than the symbol. I can’t help but think that the Walkers move is politically-motivated and was meant to signal something pro-Union, Brexit-supporting and Anglo-centric. If the parochial and couthy Nessie symbolism is an indicator, it’s message is that Scotland is a quaint backwater, too quaint to be taken seriously. Fundamentally, I suspect that Walkers traditional image is closely related to a traditional view of business. There, the traditional accepted wisdom is of the  'too wee, too poor, too stupid' variety and comes with an anti-Scottish, anti-independence mindset. It's that which guides the hand of enterprise. 

A product range like Walkers, with quality, reputation and market share, needs to be careful with its branding. Making an overt nationalistic statement with it right now speaks to me of the dominant political attitudes at board level. It's for that reason I say they are definitely corporate, elitist and pro-UK establishment, and only using the Scottish brand as a flag of convenience. 

Perhaps now their true colours are nailed to the mast.

Of course, in the chatter this has generated, any talk of not buying goods packaged or branded in ways we don’t like gets us dismissed as boycotters who threaten Scottish jobs. But surely, this is just market forces at work. After all, we are the market and, as customers, change brand loyalty for many reasons. Do the apologists for enterprise seriously mean consumers shouldn’t exercise this kind of choice in a free market? 

No. It’s our choice which drives the market. Right?

So, when a significant number of Scots decide not to buy Walkers products, because of the current political climate, or not, it will only go to show how out of touch they've been. In my view, it might also show just how arrogant they are.

Scotland The [Real] Brand

Finally, there's the photo at the head of this piece. It shows David Mundell (call me Mr Fluff) taking a libation before his graft (hard work or sleaze-baggery, you decide). He tweeted it himself on 7th March with the following text:

Some folks think there's a special relationship. I couldn't possibly comment.