Last week in England

I spent most of last week in England for a training program through work. I have been to London before, but I had never seen the rest of England. Judging England based on visiting London, is a bit like judging the US after seeing only New York City. For this trip, I flew into Manchester and then went by car to Port Sunlight which is near Liverpool. We also took a long drive to another production site near Coventry. This gave me a good opportunity to see the country side.

There was one big thing that struck me about England. It is very similar to the US. They have the urban sprawl, 24 hour grocery stores, fast food joints and loads of junk food. During our meetings, they brought pop and cookies along with the coffee and tea. The company cafeteria had lots of point-of-sale advertisements for candy and chips. And of course, the people in England are fat like Americans, too.

England is a 1 hour flight from Amsterdam and yet it’s a world away in terms of food and advertising. In the Netherlands, the food marketing is not as aggressive as what we see in the US or England. We’re used to seeing advertisements that play on our emotions: food is linked to pleasure, wealth, success, and health. There are lots of ways to entice you to buy larger packages (buy one, get one free, larger package is a better value, get free music downloads with each bottle of pop, etc.). As you know, when you have a larger package, you are more likely to use more of the product. That holds true whether it’s potato chips or laundry soap.

In the Netherlands, pack sizes are very small. Buy one get one free offers are limited to shoes. Most food advertising is for healthy products, like yogurt or fruit drinks. There are a few commercials for McDonalds and Burger King, but certainly not in the numbers that we’re used to seeing in the US. Another interesting note for advertising in the Netherlands, is the length of the ads. When the ads start playing on TV you have enough time to do all the dishes, or fold the whole load of laundry. That really invites you to walk away, rather than stick around and watch the ads.

In England, we went to a 24 hour grocery store called ASDA. As soon as we walked in, it reminded me of home. They sold clothes and household goods as well as groceries and had a cafeteria – just in case you work up an appetite with all that shopping. Later, I saw a truck that said, “ASDA – part of the Wal-Mart family.” That about sums it up, doesn’t it?