2. 2
Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Unilever ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Unilever - Logo .................................................................................................................................... 4
Heartbrand .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Heartbrand - Logo ............................................................................................................................... 5
Wall´s................................................................................................................................................... 5
Streets ................................................................................................................................................. 6
Good Humor........................................................................................................................................ 6
GB Glance ............................................................................................................................................ 6
Tio Rico................................................................................................................................................ 6
Frisko ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Others.................................................................................................................................................. 7
Different name in different countries ................................................................................................. 7
Share happy............................................................................................................................................. 8
Brands - Inappropriate meaning in other languages............................................................................... 9
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Literature............................................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix I.: Brands ............................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix II.: Heartbrand´s logo history ................................................................................................ 13
Appendix III.: Heartbrand´s – what is sold where ................................................................................. 14
Appendix IV.: International campaign: Ice cream makes u happy........................................................ 15
3. 3
Abstract
This case study is about one of the biggest ice cream producer in the world - Unilever
and its many ice creams brands knows as Heartbrand. At first I thought that the company have
like the main brand of their ice cream and uses other different brands abroad because an
inappropriate meaning in other languages or other possible reasons. Actually all the
Heartbrand´s brands are companies that Unilever bought, mostly left the original names
because they were well-known in their original country and unified them with red colored
heart logo.
The essay is structured as follows: Unilever company is introduced and their logo is
described as it is actually very interesting, covering a lot of meaning in the logo´s little icons.
The concept of Heartbrand is introduced with the logo history and its changes during the years
and olden times of certain brands are described (Wall´s, Good Humor, Frisko etc.).
There are many reasons for a global company to use different brands´ names abroad,
so one part of the essay is dedicated to an explanation why worldwide known companies
make this kind of decision. Eventually there are presented some examples of the brands with
opposite problem, meaning changing their brand name because it’s inappropriate meaning in
the language used in the market they wanted to enter.
4. 4
Unilever
Ben & Jerry´s ice cream, Bovril – beef extract that gives a taste to our cooking,
margarine Flora or Rama, that we eat every morning with bread and marmalade, famous
Hallmann´s mayonnaise which makes our salads like never before, Knorr´s ready-soups that
save our life when we do not feel like cooking, Lipton tea and so much more.. every one or
most of people know these brands as they are part of our lives, but I am sure that majority
have no idea that they are actually one company – Unilever.
A British-Dutch multinational corporation, was founded on 1st
January 1930 and owns
many brands in food, beverages, cleaning area and personal care products which are sold in
more than 180 countries. The number of brands owned by Univeler grow every year and in
2010 over 100 new brands were launched in into the market. The company operates in 11
product areas (ice cream, personal soups, skin care etc.) and in seven of them is a global
leader. For example, worldwide known brands - Dove, Lux and Rexona make the company a
international leader in the deodorant and skin care market or Ben & Jerry´s and Heartbrand
(Algida, Wall´s, Olá, Good Humor etc.) managed the same in the ice cream market. (Unilever
– About us, 2011, online).
Unilever - Logo
Unilever´s logo, in a shape of letter “U” compounded of many little symbols, can be
found at most if not every package of Unilever´s products, but from my experience it is hard
to notice it. Very interesting is the fact, that
every one of the 24 icons have a particular
meaning, which is in some way important
to the company. For instance, there is a
picture of a bird which is a symbol of
freedom, sparkle picture represents clean,
or health and sparkling with energy, an ice
cream icon is a treat and pleasure, recycle symbol presents a value of Unilever´s commitment
to sustainability or fish is a symbol of food, see or fresh waters. By going throw all the icons,
we get familiar with their core values of the company and products. (Unilever – Our logo,
2011, online).
5. 5
Heartbrand
In the Czech republic it is known as Algida, in United Kingdom is Wall´s or Olá in
Portugal. Heartbrand ice cream is Unilever´s ice cream name represented by a heart logo and
stands for many ice cream brands – Algida, Olá, Wall´s, Frido, Good Humor, Tío Rico,
Streets, HB, Miko, GB Glace, Frisco, Lusso, Langnese, Kwality Wall´s, Eskimo and Kibon.
Unilever is the world´s biggest ice cream manufacturer. The Heartbrand was lounched
in 1998 to increase international awareness and promote worldwide. Nowadays we can buy an
ice cream with heart logo in 40 countries, but in most of the them different brands names are
used. Very interesting is, that every country had a choice to create their own logo for the
product, but for obvious reasons most of them chose the heart logo. (Heartbrand, 2011,
online).
Heartbrand - Logo
Until the year 1998 many of Unilever´s ice cream companies were mostly recognized
by using a logo compounded of five horizontal red lines and white oval with blue ending with
the company name written in the middle. Different names and fonts were used. (See
Appendix II.). But this design was not obligatory and there were several companies, in those
days, using their own independent logo (See Appendix II.) even though they were part of
Unilever corporation – Wall´s in the United Kingdom, Miko in France, GB Glance in Sweden
and Frisko in Denmark.
In the 1998 a dramatic change in the logo design was made. They left the previous
appearance totally and came up with a logo in a shape of heart with yellow shadows. The
new, very trendy looking logo, designed by Carter Wong &
Partners, replaced the prior logo, but the local names (Frigo,
Algida, Langnese etc.) were carried on. The currently used
Heartbrand logo was created in 2003, the yellow shades were
removed and blue script lettering with local differences was abandoned in favor of red colored
letters of the same font to make the logo look simpler and easier to use since being one color
and one writing style. (Logos.wikia.com, 2003, online).
Wall´s
It is originally a food brand, including meat and ice cream products from United
Kingdom. The company was founded in London in 1786 by butcher Richard Wall and in
6. 6
1930 it became a part of Unilever. Butcher was the origin business, but since summer sales
down turns the corporation launched a range of ice cream in 1922 to survive. (Wikipedia.org,
2011, online).
Streets
It is an Australian original ice-cream nowadays brand owned by Unilever. Streets was
found in the 1930s by Edwin Strees and Gordon Rider and is at the moment the Australia´s
largest ice-cream manufacturer. The Heartbrand logo that is used, is the same as Wall´s ice
cream, Selecta, Algida and other many ice cream brands owned by Unilever. (Wikipedia.org,
2011, online).
Good Humor
An American ice cream brand founded in 1920 in Youngstown in Ohio. Originally
chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick sold from ice cream trucks, which was very innovative
way of selling in those days, and obviously from shops as well. The name is coming from the
believe that a person´s sense of humor and temperament were related to the sense of taste, so
good humor would mean a good sense of taste. In 1960 there we over 85 different kinds of
Good Humor ice cream products. (Goodhumor.com, 2011, online)
GB Glance
The largest ice cream company in Sweden founded in 1942 and originally named
Glace-Bolaget until 1991. It was bought by global company Unilever in 1996. Apart from
producing the same products of other Unilever´s Heartbrand, they manufacture their own
traditional brands too. (Wikipedia.org, 2011, online).
Tio Rico
Venezuelan ice cream producer. In 1952 a Ice club company was founded and soon
became a leader on ice cream market in Venezuela. In 1978 the company was renamed as Tio
Rico. In 1994 bought this business and Unilever grown its number of owned ice cream
companies. (Unilever-ancam.com, 2011, online).
Frisko
Is one of the biggest Denmark´s ice cream manufactures and its history goes back to
the 1930s, when it was founded. One of the most famous ice cream – Magnum – was
originally made by Frisco. The original Magnum introduced in 1987 was similar to today´s
7. 7
Magnum Classic – vanilla ice cream, covered in dark chocolate on a stick. (Wikipedia.org,
2011, online).
Others
Frigo is a Spanish ice cream manufacturer. Langnese is German. Originally French ice
cream company called Ortiz-Miko was bought by Unilever in 1993. For example where the
name Algida is coming from, if it was a company or artificially created brand, I unfortunately
did not find. Ola ice cream was established in 1994. Lusso is a ice cream brand in
Switzerland. Kibon is a Brazilian ice cream maker, founded in 1941. In 1942 the first ice
cream - Eskibon, chocolate covered ice cream was introduced and in 1997 the Anglo-Dutch
company Unilever bought Kibon. (Wikipedia.org, 2011, online).
Different name in different countries
Global brands like McDonald´s, Coca Cola or Microsoft carry one name to be
recognized worldwide, but the product does not have to be always standardized and might
have local versions. McDonald´s do not sell beef burger in India, Knorr´s soups and sauces
contains local tastes etc. But brands can have all the characteristic of a global brand without
carrying the same name everywhere. Sometimes, the brand identity is global, but the names
and logos are local and varies from one country to another, very often for historical reasons.
This is the case of Unilever´s ice cream as many of them are actually the original names of
companies Unilever purchased. Obviously without having nothing in common it would not be
easy for the company to be recognized internationally so all the ice cream are using the same
red colored heart logo. There can be many reasons for using different names in different
countries, for instance: political, historical, cultural or due to language differences as one
world have different meaning in other languages and sometimes it can be inappropriate. One
of the most important reasons for keeping the original company name is for its local well-
knowing which would be lost with the name changes. (DE MOOIJ, 2010, online).
Even a worldwide sold brand does not mean that customers in all countries will
consider is as a global brand. Every company was founded in a particular country and
sometimes the origin is perceived more than the international activity. This could be one of
the reasons by Unilever keeps on buying ice cream companies from all over the world,
keeping the original name and connect them only with Heartbrand logo, then we can say that
the company is global as it produces and sells worldwide.
8. 8
In the Unilever´s case we can see that they are using different names for different
countries for other reasons not an inappropriate meaning of Heartbrand (which is the “cover”
name for all the ice cream brands) in other languages, but because of the advantage of well-
known original company name that Unilever bought.
Share happy
Having many brands names from many different countries there is a need to connect
them together, apart from the same red heart logo. I have found out a web site
sharehappy.com were you can “Share ice cream, share happy” through a campaign “Ice cream
makes you happy” see Appendix IV., by choosing from 34 offered countries (Australia, the
Czech republic, Chile, France, Slovenia, Mexico etc.).
The first section is dedicated to Happy videos, claiming that “they” wanted to share
with us some happy videos to brighten our day. The first video that comes up to me on the
United Kingdom page is from Mark Anthony – personal trainer, who gives us a 2 minute
lesson about how to burn fat and how our body works. The video was in my opinion nothing
like what I expected and was not funny at all apart from the fact that if I love ice cream I am
not obsessed with my figure. And unfortunately all the “happy videos” were about losing
weight, so it actually made me depressed, surely not happy.
Second section called “Happier planet” is basically about the company´s ambitions
about environment and people´s health presenting their goals in three main areas: greenhouse
gases, sustainable sourcing and nutrition. Following section called “All products” is a simple
presentation of products that are on the market. “Happy news” on the fourth place in the menu
inform us about the happiest new stories from around the web, so you all curious click on the
“read here” bottom to find out that the page does not work. The last section “What´s new”,
where someone would expect updated news are only empty words how ice cream makes
people happy followed by presentation of several kinds of ice cream. So in a summary United
Kingdom website sharehappy.co.uk was one big disappointment.
But have to say that looking at the other counties “Share happy” web sides, they are
looking much better and offer much more. For example in Switzerland there is an extra
section – fashion, offering cool stuff to buy with the corporation motives, on the Belgium web
side you can download a nicely presented complete ice cream offer with all the prices, Italian
9. 9
website inform about “smiling ice cream automat” that detects smiles and when the photo is
taken you can post it on your Facebook page. (Sharehappy.com, 2010, online).
Brands - Inappropriate meaning in other languages
At the end of this essay I would like to present examples of brands that were forced to
change their names in an intention to enter foreign market. Rolls-Royce model Silver Mist
sound a bit strange in Germany where mist means dung. Finnish defroster Super-Piss will be
never sold in English speaking countries since piss in English means urine as well as a toilette
paper Krapp which is similar to crap or crappy meaning shit, lousy etc. Chocolate Dajka in
Hungarian means wet nurse which is not the association we want to make. Just a brief
introduction of brands, that had to change their names while entering different markets.
10. 10
Conclusion
The Anglo-Dutch company Unilever is not the kind of company, at least in the ice
cream sector, that have one brand of ice cream and slowly enters one market after another
until they go global. Their system is to buy ice cream companies from all over the world –
Street is from Australia, Good Humor is Americans, GB Glance comes from Sweden, Tio
Rico is Venezuelan´s ice cream, Frisko is one of the biggest ice cream producers in Denmark
and so on. They keep the original name of the bought company benefiting from its established
image in the particular country and unifying them all together under the same red color heart
logo, which currently used image was change last time in 2003.
Being a global company does not have to necessary mean that they have one brand
name like McDonald´s, Apple, Microsoft and so on. A well design logo can be good enough
to be recognized worldwide even with a different company name under it. To connect all the
brands together Unilever uses one main website www.sharehappy.com from where you can
choose the country you are interested in accompanied by an “Ice cream makes you happy”
campaign where are “happy” videos, Heartbrand´s fashion or Smiling ice cream automat can
be found.
I am sure that everyone knows this red color heart ice cream either it is called Algida,
Good Humor, Ola or Frisco. It is a very tasty ice cream with a long experience in the area,
considering the individual history of each company that Unilever owns.
11. 11
Literature
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Paradoxes [online]. The United States of America : SAGE Publications, 2010 [cit. 2011-11-
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<http://www.unilever-ancam.com/marcas/alimentos/tiorico.aspx>.
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