Indian Naan goes with EVERYthing
September 26th, 2007 Posted in OpinionI am personally a fan of what Galen Weston and the crew at Bensimon-Byrne are doing for the President’s Choice brand. Below is an example of one of the ads you are all familiar with by now. It does a great job of aligning Loblaws with the lofty ideals of saving the world, one plastic bag at a time.
But the one that catches my eye every time is the one featuring Indian Naan. The story goes that these two entrepreneurs took the build it and they will come strategy when building their business. Their oven is the largest in the world and produces some of the best Naan on this side of the Atlantic. The best part is that Loblaws bought in to it and has single handedly helped to make these two guys millionaires.
Great, but why am I telling you all this. Well this post was inspired by a recent trip I took to the local Atlantic Superstore in downtown Halifax. It is currently being overrun (as most Loblaws stores are I imagine) with images of Indian Naan and the usual POS stuff trying to get everyone to bite (pun!) into this new trend.
In the store, there were these little placards with the words “Try it with Indian Naan.” (I’m paraphrasing a bit on the copy) On its own, a fairly boring ad but its placement around the store was key. It was with EVERYTHING! There was one with the cakes at the bakery, there was one with the ketchup, there was one in the magazine isle and there was even one on a pin on a store employee.
Now I’m sure “Nancy” would have been very tasty with a lil’ Naan but I just don’t see a triple layer triple chocolate heart stopper squished in between two perfectly toasted pieces of Indian Naan as a delicacy to salivate over. Obviously the store manager got a little carried away with the little sign but his enthusiasm should be commended because after all, Galen Weston just wants to open people’s minds to new types of food options. Even if, that means hocking a Kraft Dinner & Naan sandwich as the best thing since sliced bread.
