T N Ninan: A noodle-bowl of issues

The question is, when brand ambassadors are being hauled up for what they promote, will brand managers come under the scanner for what they do?

Many moons ago, a well-known consumer products company introduced in the market what it called an "egg shampoo". This being India, at some stage egg prices started going up. Rumour spread that the shampoo company had been buying up eggs in the market, causing a shortage. The company hastily came out with clarifications that the egg ingredient in its shampoo was so small that it could not have made any difference to the egg market. So much, then, for the "egg shampoo"! That story now has a contemporary sequel. A food products company is being asked to explain its positioning of a product around two ingredients (pistachio and almonds) that are only a tiny part of the product. Shades of the egg shampoo case!

Are both cases nothing more than standard marketing practice, in that brand differentiation and "benefit" are highlighted on the basis of marginal qualities or small additives? For instance, it used to be argued that tooth-paste makes little difference - what cleans your teeth is the brushing action, not the chalk or silica (think sand) in the paste. There also used to be a food additive promoted for children as a growth elixir, to make them grow taller - on the strength of its lysine content. It turned out later that a spoonful of peas contained more lysine than what was being promoted at a heavy price.

Read more from our special coverage on "NESTLE MAGGI CONTOVERSY"

• Consumer affairs ministry seeks ASG help for foolproof case
• Up to Nestle now to do due diligence, come back to us: Yudhvir Singh Malik
• Now, Maharashtra govt bans Maggi
• Nestle moves HC against Uttrakhand's ban on Maggi
• UK launches Maggi tests for lead content

The question is, when brand ambassadors are being hauled up for what they promote (and sensible Ms Ranaut has come out against the promotion of "fairness"), will brand managers come under the scanner for what they do? In the wake of the Maggi fracas - which is growing to the proportions of the pesticide-in-soft-drinks controversy of yesteryear - more companies should expect to come under the scanner. But once we start down this road (to me, a welcome development), where do we stop? Will those who promote ayurvedic products that have iron as a standard ingredient, get the same treatment as Maggi noodles, or benefit from benign neglect?

The lady from PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) had a point when she said on TV the other day that most of the eggs we eat are produced by a poultry industry that treats hens in cruel fashion - one reason why demand has grown in the west for eggs from "free-range" chicken (though there is also a study that says caged chicken lead less stressful lives!). Enough has been written and documented about the cruelties that the western meat products industry inflicts routinely on cattle and pigs, and the hideous methods by which sought-after delicacies like Kobe beef and liver pate' are produced.

In India the routine cruelty is at a more basic level - the state of our abattoirs, and the animal trauma caused there. Also, have we thought through the implications of banning the killing of cattle? A familiar sight on the highway from southern Odisha to coastal Andhra Pradesh is of large herds of cattle - old, thin, many hobbling and unfit to walk - being shepherded along for a couple of hundred kilometers, to a pick-up point near Vishakhapatnam, where they get packed into trucks and taken to a state further south for slaughter. If they are to be killed anyway, why not spare them that last, painful journey, or get put into trucks earlier? And if killing them is banned, who will take care of cows too old for milking and bulls not needed as draught power?

Once we start down this road, the agenda for action becomes quite massive and reaches into all kinds of corners. Lobbies will get into action - the states that produce the most eggs will not want the poultry industry properly regulated, traditionalists will want ayurvedic products left alone, and modern marketers will see nothing wrong in their consumer-fooling practices - until something suddenly hits them in the solar plexus where noodles used to be.