Is a lion corpse surrounded by insects a good selling point for food? Modern marketing experts would certainly have their doubts. And yet it worked for more than 140 years. The drawing of a dead lion has been on the packaging of Lyle’s Golden Syrup for so long. The sticky sugar syrup even got that in 2006 An entry in the Guinness Book of Records. But now the company made a historic decision: it will appear on the plastic packaging in the future a new logo.
The old one showed the biblical lion, Samson (or so it says). in the book of Judges, chapter 14) tore it apart with his bare hands, only to discover a little later that the carcass was filled with delicious honey. This is not only martial, but also incompatible with food safety. The latter may not have been the deciding factor for Lyle’s to choose a new logo. The new design is significantly simpler, friendlier and more modern. It only shows the stylized face of a lion with a friendly honey bee flying above it.
With the old version, Lyle’s managed to do something that not many traditional brands manage to do: cross the line between old-fashioned and traditional. Because sometimes, it seems, companies just have to be patient long enough. An old-fashioned logo seems somehow cheap, out of time, and looks like it’s standing still. On the other hand, if it falls out of time long enough, the Manufactum effect occurs (“The good things still exist”): The product suddenly has a venerable aura around it, the logo becomes a traditional symbol that tells something about history and quality, that lasts for generations. What it shows is secondary, what is important is what it stands for.
Even representatives of the Church of England are getting involved
However, this usually only works until the family business is bought by a corporation or the heirs fall for the promises of marketing agencies while studying business administration. In both cases it is often argued that from now on one should no longer fall out of step with the times, but rather have to move with them. The goal of this walk is clear, namely “to arrive in the 21st century”.
Lyle’s Golden Syrup now also wants to go there. Even though it is definitely a risk. When juice maker Tropicana changed its design from an orange with a straw to a plain glass of orange juice in 2009, customers rebelled and sales plummeted. Lyle’s Golden Syrup now appears to be facing a similar threat. On social media, fans of the syrup mourned the old logo, and given the biblical implications, even the Church of England got involved. The criticism: Christian messages are being sidelined.
The resistance is so strong that even Gerald Mason, the company’s senior vice president, in the telegraph apologized: “It makes me sad that we may have unintentionally upset people today.” The big question now is whether Lyle’s will sit out the criticism – or whether part two of the sugar syrup saga will soon follow: The Return of the Lion’s Corpse.