"'A few weeks ago, I went undercover.'" "Hello, my name is Mr Banana." "'I was going to perform an experiment on some small people.'" "I'm going to show you these different pictures on these cards, and if you know what it is, I want you to shout out and tell me." "'And I got more than I bargained for...'" "What's this?" "Pound!" "Yes, cash." "'It all began in quite an orderly way." "'But then...'" "ALL SHOUT:" "McDonald's!" "So, you've no idea?" "No idea what this one is." "OK, what's this one?" "'These food superbrands are blowing my mind.'" "I've realised there's a handful of mega corporations, which seem to have infiltrated the lives of most of us." "I don't know how they got there." "The past no longer exists, everything is Red Bull-branded." "# You like it, you love it" "# You know you really want it... #" "Now it's time to turn the tables, because I'm going to infiltrate their lives." "Fantastic access." "I'll knock on the doors of the global grub mongers." "I think they might be expecting a slightly bigger crew, slightly more impressive cameras and stuff." "The big boys, who often sell many times as much as their nearest rivals." "We sell one and half million cans a day." "# Nothing that can beat it... #" "'I want to know where they came from.'" "Did it have cocaine in it?" "'And how they became so intimate with us.'" "It seems that these brands are being perceived in the same way that we recognise friends and family." "Is it just that they taste better?" "Or is there more going on?" "# McDonald's, McDonald's" "# Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut... #" "'So I'll sacrifice my dignity...'" "Snazzy." "'..to show you this secretive world.'" "I'd like you to sign the confidentiality agreement." "You'll not get this recipe, Alex, however hard you try." "The world of the global food and drinks superbrands." "# Can't resist, can't resist" "# Let's eat to the beat... #" "I've been looking at brands a lot recently and I'm quite pleased to say that I consider myself to be immune from brands." "I'm not taken in by logos," "I am my own man, you won't catch me dancing to their tune." "I buy things on the basis of real value." "This brain area is free from brands." "Except my kitchen cupboards appear to be telling a very different story." "How did they get in there?" "And it's not just my cupboards." "There's a battle for hearts and minds out there, and the superbrands are winning." "Just how did all these brands get into my cupboards, get into my stomach, and get into my brain?" "Let's find out." "I'm wondering which brand I should look at first, and I just can't decide." "Should it be Heinz?" "Starbucks?" "Red Bull?" "I don't know why but I feel I may be receiving a message." "Since I've been looking, I've realised that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you're never far from the words "Coca-Cola"." "I can't think of two words that I see more often." "How come they've become plastered across my eye line?" "You know, how have they become the worlds' number one soft drink maker?" "Is it something to do with the secret recipe?" "What's going on?" "If Coca-Cola were a person, they'd be the person that would pick you up." "When I'm down, I'd go to them and they'd comfort me." "They'd be friendly." "Very popular." "Party animal." "Party animal, without a doubt." "Quite sexy." "But I reckon they'd back-stab you, they'd be a back-stabbing friend." "Not very trustworthy." "Kind of old biddies that just want to give you their two pence worth." "Whatever you say, doesn't matter cos they know better." "To get myself started, I'm meeting someone here who knows all about Coca-Cola." "How did Coca-Cola become the number one soft drinks brand in the world?" "Basically by riding on the tails of the American army." "Oh, hello, what?" "Sorry, am I in your picture or can I take your picture?" "'Sometimes, I think the English are too polite.'" "Tom, our interviewee has been engaged by a tourist to take a photograph of him." "I obviously look like I'm competent with a camera." "I'm slightly busy at the moment but..." "'Tom Standage has actually written a book about drinks, not photography, 'and when he's free I'm going to ask him...'" "How global is Coca-Cola?" "It's about as global as you can get." "It's in more countries, more places then there are members of the United Nations, and at one point, in fact, the company had so little competition that it said," ""We need to define how big our market is by share of throat." ""How much of humanity's liquid are we providing?"" "How much of the hydration of the human race..." "Yes. ..have they got?" "Share of throat." "If you've beaten all your rivals in the soft drinks industry, where do you go after that?" "You have to say, "Right, we're going to take on all those other liquids."" "Coca-Cola may be a global megabrand but they're not too big to talk to me." "Especially as I might've told them I'm the BBC's most important presenter." "Yeah, well, anyway, I was hoping to see the place where they mix up the secret recipe, but instead they've agreed to meet me at their World of Coca-Cola Heritage Attraction... ..where I'm going to ask them how come they've scrawled their name all over the world of Alex Riley?" "Thank you." "Hi!" "Good morning!" "They're basically opening the whole thing up early for us." "We're getting fantastic access, but I think they're expecting a slightly bigger crew, slightly more impressive cameras and stuff." "There's only three of us." "Hi, Jackie, I'm Alex." "This is our crew." "Are you serious?" "!" "Totally serious." "We travel light." "Y'all have made my day." "'Phew, I got away with that one, then." "'The first thing I can see is that it's not all about Coke." "'These are some of the more than 500 other soft drink brands which Coca-Cola own around the world.'" "Korea, Thailand, Bahrain, Japan." "Oh, I've got to try some Pib." "Beverly from Italy." "'They might be number one now...'" "It's quite sour." "'..but if another drink overtook them, they might find that they owned it anyway." "'Now to the bit I'm really excited about.'" "Hello, you must be Phil." "I am, good morning." "Hello, I'm Alex." "Alex, welcome." "Thank you very much." "'The Coke museum includes the Space Shuttle Coke Dispenser," "'The Van I'm Allowed To Sit In, and an 1880's soda fountain." "'I should be able to get the answers to some important questions here.'" "Did it have cocaine in it?" "No, this was one of those myths that's out there." "Come on, it did, didn't it?" "It had cocaine." "That was the thing, people got a real buzz off it." "Wasn't that the..." "No." "Didn't it have coca, coca leaves..." "Wait, coca..." "Cocaine!" "Well, there certainly is some element of cocaine in the coca leaves, but we've always had an extractive process, so..." "Even, even at this time in the 1880s?" "Even at that time, yeah, exactly." "OK." "In 1886, a pharmacist called John Pemberton made a sugary brown syrup which he mixed with fizzy water to be sold as a medicine and brain tonic." "He called it Coca-Cola." "Unfortunately he dies just a year and a half after he invented the product." "It wasn't a cocaine overdose?" "Nothing like that." "But businessman Asa Candler had big dreams for Pemberton's creation." "he bought the rights for around 2,000 and formed the Coca-Cola Company." "Candler turned out to be a marketing visionary and had the drink distributed to soda fountains in drug stores across America." "Getting Coke's name everywhere seems to have been with them right from the start." "He creates serving trays, he creates posters, he creates calendars, pens and pencils and wallets, and, if you're a lady, a pocket mirror to adjust your make-up." "Gosh." "Anything he could think of that would put the name out in front of the consumer." "It's quite simple." "When you think of tomorrow, you think of getting more and more people to drink Coca-Cola." "That's our job." "Well, you bear down, you press, you push, you put out effort and you get results." "I've always thought this marketing is a modern curse, but these guys were at it 120 years ago." "It was actually estimated that... approximately 10% of all Americans in the 1890s received a free glass of Coca-Cola." "Wow, ahead of their time." "Way ahead." "Way ahead." "There was a drink, pure and wholesome, delicious to taste... refreshing." "And they trademarked it Coca-Cola." "I obtained the right to bottle Coca-Cola." "Sales really took off when three entrepreneurs had a brilliant idea - putting Coca-Cola into bottles." "In just ten years, 400 independent bottling plants sprang up, squirting the fizzy stuff into bottles from sea to shining sea." "Coke sold them the secret syrup and they did the rest." "This is how the Coca-Cola company still operates today." "But it wasn't the only Cola on the market." "In 1898, another medicinal syrup was introduced, which would become Coke's arch rival for the next century..." "Pepsi." "However, a big world event was to give Coke a massive boost." "Am I right in thinking that it was like the war, the war was like a big, a big turning point?" "Robert Woodruff, who was head of the company at that time, made a pledge that he would get Coke to American troops for a nickel, regardless of what it cost the company." "This was him being patriotic." "Actually, this was a brilliant piece of marketing because it meant that Coca-Cola became a... vital supply for the army." "So they weren't subject to sugar rationing so they could maintain their production." "That was cool." "It meant that the soldiers regarded drinking Coca-Cola as a link back home and they wrote letters saying, "Coca-Cola reminds us what we're fighting for,"" "and all this kind of stuff." "So it was massively successful marketing." "But it would be unpatriotic to sell Coke to the enemy, so one country was missing out on the bonanza." "Coca-Cola couldn't be sold to the Nazis during the war, so the bottler in Germany created Fanta to fill the gap." "In the course of World War II, we actually sent 64 portable bottling plants to follow US troops." "So these went throughout Western Europe, they went into the South Pacific, they went into North Africa." "They even went into parts of South America." "And it meant that, when the American Army withdrew from all these countries that it had fought in, the Coca-Cola distribution system was left behind and it was then on every continent except Antarctica." "These days, Coke sell a whopping one and a half billion servings every single day." "Anything we do from a marketing perspective we... like to think about earning our unfair share of pop culture." "That's a good measurement and we think we've done it well." ""Our unfair share," I like that." "A disproportionate share." "You're just trying to make sure that whatever we do, whatever environment we're in, we're bombarded with Coca-Cola messages." "We don't like to think of it of it as being bombarded, but you're constantly reminded." "That ubiquitous presence." "How important is the actual liquid inside the bottle?" "I mean all the other things that surround it are strong, iconic images and we all know the shape of the lettering, the colours and everything like that." "I mean, really, does the liquid matter?" "Yeah, absolutely, the liquid matters." "At a fundamental level, we're hydrating the world and we all, as humans, need hydration, so there's a fundamental benefit to drinking Coca-Cola." "It's not the only way to hydrate yourself." "There's a million and one ways to hydrate yourself." "There are." "Water, tea..." "We like to think that there's 500 ways to hydrate yourself cos we have 500 brands." "We're a complete beverage company." "But you can happily hydrate yourself without Coke." "It's not like the only way I can get hydration is by having a Coke." "No, it might be a preferred way, though." "ALEX BELCHES" "Pardon me." "But of course it isn't the preferred way for everyone." "For example, Pepsi." "During the height of the Cold War, Richard Nixon's law firm represented Pepsi Cola." "By 1972, he was the US President and able to smooth the way for Pepsi Cola to become the first foreign product to be sold in the Soviet Union." "Coke was seen as too American for the Commies, so Pepsi reigned supreme until the fall of the Iron Curtain." "In fact, where there's anti-American sentiment, Coke suffers." "Today in the Middle East, local colas have been created in protest against America." "But still either Coke or a Coca-Cola-owned drink is the number one soft drink everywhere in the world." "Except in one small country, where it's being kept off the top spot by a local brew." "CAN OPENS, BABY GLUGS" "BABY BELCHES" "Do you lie awake at night... seeing that orange liquid and just going crazy?" ""How can we beat Irn Bru?"" "I think our marketers in Scotland do that, for sure." "Do they?" "Cheers, mate." "Coke." "More, more, more." "Mind boggling." "# You are the latest contender... #" "I know I'm only supposed to be looking at Global Superbrands, but anyone who can hold off the might of Coke has got to be worth a detour." "What's your favourite soft drink?" "Possibly Irn Bru." "Irn Bru." "Irn Bru, definitely." "Irn Bru." "Everyone likes Irn Bru." "Most people prefer it." "I don't know someone who doesn't." "What about Coke?" "Not so much, no." "Why is Scotland so mad about Irn Bru?" "Because it's Scottish, do you know what I mean?" "Everyone can associate it with Scotland." "I think we just drink it for pride, maybe." "Cos it's even...ginger." "Is drinking Coke disloyal?" "Yeah, it is." "# Ich heisse superfantastisch... #" "So does that mean you could put any fizzy drink onto the shelf, say "Made in Scotland" and beat Coca-Cola?" "Surely there's more to it than that." "And I'm not the only one who would like to know." "In 1999, Coke sent a team of dedicated marketing hit men, just to take the top spot from Irn Bru." "Even they failed." "Well, Irn Bru have been around for 110 years, so they'd know a thing or two." "I've worked out that worldwide, Coke sells 17,361 servings a second compared with Irn Bru's...erm... 12." "I believe its important to always look good on television." "Snazzy." "The commercial director of Irn Bru seems to have different ideas." "I'm not being interviewed wearing that, mate." "'Each to his own.'" "I think this is the third time I've been here." "Really?" "Yeah." "Like Coca-Cola, Irn Bru is made from a secret recipe." "This time I'm going to see the place where it's mixed." "That's say a week and a half to two weeks of Irn Bru essence will be made into there." "It's all done in that room there but you're not allowed in with the camera." "Are we allowed in there WITHOUT the camera?" "Ah, no." "You're not going to get this recipe, Alex, however hard you try, let me tell you." "It's a secret, it's been secret for 110 years." "'Oh, well." "It was worth a try." "'At least I'm allowed into the room outside the room.'" "Why do Scots love it so much?" "I think it goes beyond being just a soft drink." "I think the character of the brand, if you like, is also very closely linked to the character of Scotland." "It's a fun brand, it enjoys having a laugh, it's a bit maverick at times." "And Coke's a great competitor, they want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, but...." "I've heard that rumour, yeah." "Yeah, but people in Scotland, you know, they want to be different." "It's down to earth." "It's very down to earth." "Get the door!" "'Step away from the vehicle!" "'" "Have you ever done advertising that hasn't hit the mark?" "That people have said isn't Irn Bru enough?" "I quite often, when we've finished an ad, look at it and say," ""Would my competitors put this out on the market?"" "If the answer's yes, I've probably got it wrong." "But Irn Bru will need to watch their back, because Coke had told me of some very big plans." "If we're going to double this business in ten years, we will only ever be as successful as the communities in which we operate are successful, so we have got to build strong, sustainable communities." "You're going to double the..." "You're in 206 countries, selling 1.6 billion servings a day..." "We'll go to 3.2." "You're going to double it?" "Two million servings a minute." "Surely that's impossible?" "Key to that Coca-Cola success is teen recruitment." "The teen market is very, very critical to us, so as you see our marketing campaigns and our marketing outreach and initiatives, they will be anchored in recruiting that next generation of teens." "Coke's global domination seems to be a combination of getting the logo everywhere, getting the drink within an arm's reach, and getting you to like it when you're young." "Oh, and perhaps its winning personality." "Who'd have thought fizzy drinks have a personality?" "But Irn Bru's personality, I would say, has a somewhat limited appeal when you compare it to Coke's." "The thing is, if you want to be a global superbrand you have to make everyone like you, not just Scottish people." "There's another brand I want to look at who know a thing or two about being popular, but it's not Heinz." "They've got over 30,000 restaurants in 120 countries." "It's not Cadbury's." "They employ one and half million people." "We've already done Coke." "Hello." "Can I get a Big Mac, please?" "What's the secret of their mass appeal?" "# This is how we do it" "# Hippity hop... #" "What type of person would Ronald be?" "Fast, maybe not that bothered about appearance." "Quite beefy, butch, very manly." "Selfish." "Fat, middle-aged guy, just all sweaty." "Someone that's come out of prison, right, and trying to stay on the straight and narrow, but ultimately they'll abscond and go back to where they were before." "60 years ago, Dick and Mac McDonald opened their hamburger drive-through restaurant in San Bernardino, California." "They were obsessed with putting the fast into fast food and worked out to the last detail how to serve the quickest meal." "Absolutely everything they did would be built on one principle and that was speed." "When a travelling salesman named Ray Kroc visited, he saw the potential for rolling out the idea across America." "He went into a partnership with the brothers and the franchising began." "But just six years later, Kroc was frustrated that the McDonald's brothers were holding him back so he bought them out for just over 2 million." "Ray told me, "You know Art, I'm not a vindictive guy," ""but I'm going to get those sons of bitches."" "The McDonald brothers were allowed to keep one restaurant in the deal." "Soon afterwards, Ray Kroc set up a brand new McDonald's opposite and put them out of business." "Now McDonald's have over 32,000 restaurants in over 100 countries." "They've agreed to talk to me about the secret of their massive global success." "So I've come to their hometown of Chicago." "Unfortunately, shortly before I'm due to meet them they've pulled out, and they can't tell me why." "However, they have given us permission to film outside their flagship store here in Chicago." "Exciting as this is, I've decided to make my own inquiries." "If you're travelling somewhere, you know exactly what you're getting." "Consistency." "That's what I think it is." "You get the same no matter where you are, in the airport, here... probably China." "The word on the streets of Chicago is that McDonald's is great because it's always open, it's cheap and wherever you eat a McDonald's, the taste is pretty much the same." "There's nothing going to catch you out or surprise you." "So imagine my surprise when I discovered the Chicken Mexican Wrap," "The Maharaja-Mac, the Pizza McPuff," "The Burger McDo, the Bubur Ayam McD, McChicken Porridge," "Chicken McDo with spaghetti, whatever that says," "Ayam Goreng McD, McArabia Kofta," "Taro Pie, Sultan Beef and..." "Italy's got its teeth stuck into an almighty row over a burger." "It's the new McDonald's burger called the McItaly." "Some food critics have described it as a betrayal of Italy's culinary tradition." "It's something that doesn't belong to our culture." "McDonald's serves different food in every country." "I want to see how they do it, so I've chosen a country with a particularly burgerish problem." "Argh!" "India is 80% Hindu, which presents a big problem for a company that sells beef hamburgers." "The Hindu religion states that cows are sacred, so there's no way that these will end up on a menu at McDonald's." "DOG GROWLS" "Hey!" "I can't speak for the dog, to be honest." "The dog isn't sacred, although they don't eat dogs at McDonald's." "Don't be daft." "See the bloke over there who's got a backpack on, and he's tied a cool box onto his bike, he's one of the home delivery riders because here in India," "McDonald's do home delivery." "Off they go." "I'm meeting two branding experts who've studied how the Golden Arches came to the subcontinent." "Hello, Hamsini." "Meera." "Meera, hello." "Hi, there." "OK, so shall we go in and have a look?" "'There's a lot of things on the menu here 'which are very different to anything I've ever eaten at Maccy D's." "'And I've chosen the most different.'" "OK, so here's paneer salsa wrap, this is very much adapted to India, and specifically north, to this part of Delhi because paneer or cottage cheese is the local version of cheese." "It's a kind of home-made version." "OK." "It's quite a delicacy here." "So they've taken an Indian staple and kind of given it an international twist." "Yes, and they prepared it in a way that an Indian mother would make it at home." "'I never imagined that McDonald's would bring me a whole new culinary experience... 'with a twist.'" "Know what, it doesn't even..." "It just tastes like McDonald's." "It just sort of tastes like warm lettuce, and that kind of generic..." "McDonald's mayonnaisey, sort of, slightly sweet..." "If you'd blindfolded me, I would've known that was a McDonald's, even though I've never had the paneer salsa wrap." "It's kind of India meets Mexico via America." "It's international and therefore aspirational and desirable and different." "But it's not foreign and alien and different." "OK, so it's kind of..." "It's not too much of a leap." "You feel you're doing something exotic, but it's familiar enough so you can understand what's going on." ""Oh, yeah, it's a bit like a paneer thing but it's got an international twist to it."" "And that's the trick, isn't it, for a global brand?" "To remain global but to localise so well." "McDonald's is one of the few brands that's done it extremely well." "So even thousands of miles away from home in a different culture," "McDonald's have managed to deliver on that promise of safe, unchallenging food." "How do they manage to give it that McDonald's blandness?" "It looks Indian, sounds Indian, but tastes McDonald's." "They do have flavouring in some of their food and drink, so could that be it?" "As I located one of the biggest food flavouring companies in the world and, unlike McDonald's, they're actually willing to talk to me," "I may be able to find out." "I'm just heading to a company called International Flavours And Fragrances now." "Now this is a firm that produces flavours which the large food brands use." "The interesting thing is, they also make perfumes for loads of people, so I just hope that they don't get the two mixed up because you don't want to smell like a burger when you're trying to impress a lady, do you?" "So I'm sure they've got some very clever systems to make sure the two keep apart." "I think I've gone wrong, have I gone wrong?" "I don't know whether IFF create flavours for McDonald's or not, and even if I did, I couldn't tell you because I have to sign a confidentiality agreement." "Right, OK, so this is, you don't want me to give away any secrets of the big food brands, what their flavours, tastes...are?" "Absolutely, that's their information." "'This food business is very hush-hush.'" "HE SNIFFS" "Ooh!" "I'm getting strawberry." "Flavours." "Flavours everywhere." "HE SNIFFS" "I can smell things, there's all sorts of little bottles and jars and powders and things." "So this lot really should know how a brand can make all their food taste similar, and why." "For example, say you sold burgers and then you introduce a fish product, is there a way that you can give some sort of... brand consistency across the two, even though they're totally different flavours," "totally different foods." "I think it's fair to say that in such a big shift like that would be difficult when you're just looking at the flavouring." "But there are... cues that a food product has that you may... be able to transfer from one to another." "It might not be the flavouring, it might be... the thickness, the saltiness, or whatever, something like that." "So, they need to have a distinctive taste, that every time you go to them, you know you're going to get." "Yeah, we would refer to that characteristic as a signature, a brand signature." "I think signature's a perfect word for it." "It's something that's very specific and we will try and align it with the personality of the brand so that it fits the way that our client is trying to project the image of the brand." "So how can the taste reflect a personality?" "How does that work?" "Well, it just can." "There are certain notes that we will use, certain flavour attributes, that just can suggest certain characteristics." "It could be something serious, it could be something playful, it could be..." "You can make it taste playful?" "If I was doing what you are, I'd want to get that across." "The brand has a personality." "'So McDonald's don't have the same food around the world, they have the same personality." "'It's just a question of stamping it onto whatever food people like in the country they're in.'" "There's even a word for this - it's not global, it's not local, but it's glocal, yeah, as in glocalisation." "It really does seem that there's a lot more to these food brands than I imagined." "They're crazy, aren't they?" "'Maybe they are crazy, maybe all this marketing and personality 'and glocalising is meaningless, 'because I'm sure I always buy my food based on the taste.'" "I'll take that, thank you..." "You choose a brand because you like the taste." "Not because you like the logo or the colour of the packaging." "It's because you actually prefer it." "These are Heinz, for example." "I like Heinz Baked Beans cos they taste better than other beans to me." "But you'd be surprised what effect branding can have on your taste buds." "I'm not a mug who's being manipulated by a global multi-national corporation." "Well, you'd like to think not." "I would, I would." "I'm sure, but the point is we are so susceptible to this kind of marketing and this type of messaging that it begins to affect the way that we taste stuff." "Because we believe something about a brand, we then transfer that belief into our physiology, therefore, the brand that we believe tastes better actually does taste better." "'I find that very hard to swallow." "'Let's settle this once and for all.'" "'Take two tins of beans, both Heinz." "'Two identical flasks." "'But one gets the real label and one gets a different label." "'I am such a rascal!" "'" "Let's see what difference the label makes." "Very important to shake the beans to the correct degree." "Tesco baked beans." "They're nice!" "Heinz." "Tesco ones tasted sweeter, but these taste more like I remember them tasting." "I would buy Heinz Baked Beans." "That's one for Heinz!" "Start with Heinz baked beans." "It's quite salty actually." "Not salty, just mushy." "Well, lets get the Tesco baked beans out." "Yeah, they taste better." "Yeah, they're better." "'So this lot prefer the own brand!" "'But they still think there's a difference.'" "I've only gone and cross-threaded it." "Do you normally buy Heinz?" "Yeah, always." "Tesco baked beans." "They're very sweet." "I'd definitely go Heinz." "I prefer the Heinz." "'In fact, out of 11 people I spoke to...'" "I prefer the taste of the Heinz." "It's got a nicer flavour." "Yeah, this was more sweet." "That one is just slightly blander." "They taste identical." "'..only one said they tasted the same, which means I was wrong." "'The branding actually makes a huge difference." "'So how has Heinz, who sell almost ten times as many baked beans 'as their nearest rival, become such a powerful name?" "'" "MUSIC: "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk" "If Heinz was a person, they'd be pretty over confident." "Like a dad - nice, kind, friendly, caring." "The kind of guy who'll sit at home and have microwave food in front of the TV." "Bit of a clown." "Pretty popular." "Ginger." "Knowledgeable, wise, quite articulate." "Wear a lot of fake tan maybe?" "'I want to know more about the people who have made beans mean Heinz.'" "Alex Riley..." "'I've persuaded them to let me in." "'This is what I know about them so far.' 140 years ago, dodgy producers put all kinds of rubbish in food to make it go further." "Over in Pennsylvania, when Henry J Heinz founded his company, he based it on a radical new thought." "If you put your food in clear glass jars, people can see that there's no junk in it." "A few years later he introduced tomato ketchup to Americans and never looked back." "AMERICAN VOICEOVER:" "When Grandma was a bride, a familiar site were these gleaming white wagons drawn by jet black horses delivering the new processed food products..." "Heinz soon went global supplying London's very posh Fortnum  Mason's." "Baked beans were introduced in 1901." "By the '20s, the Brits were going mad for Heinz ketchup, spaghetti and beans." "So much so, they built a factory here." "'Heinz is now the fourth biggest food brand in the world.'" "And is this recipe the same as it was in 1901, or..." "No." "I mean, apart from the gradual salt reduction, a programme we've been engaged with over many years, there used to be a piece of pork in the recipe." "Like an actual little..." "Yes, a little piece of pork." "..bit of meat?" "To add some flavour." "OK." "But during the Second World War, shortages and so on meant that wasn't available so vegetarian baked beans became the norm and they've stuck with us." "'Just like Coke, Heinz had a very good World War II.'" "Heinz beans and other beans were part of the ration allocation because they were seen to be nourishing and good for you." "Presumably, after the War, you'd been in it together, sort of thing." "Whereas, possibly other branded food items weren't available." "So it was an advantage to Heinz to be there every step of the way." "Yes, absolutely." "WOMAN:" "Don't they look good?" "MAN:" "They cost sixpence, eight pence or a shilling..." "I find it amazing that in this fast-moving world, we're still eating virtually the same recipe of beans as we were over 100 years ago." "Beans!" "In that time, they've grown in popularity to the point where this factory churns out one and a half million cans a day, with pretty much the same label as it did in 1901." "What's going on?" "Hasn't anyone thought of a better recipe in all that time?" "There's a brain scanner in South London, which is looking inside some heads for information which might throw some light on how these beans have become so popular." "James?" "'The neurosense group do research for brands into how our brains respond to them." "'James is going to be inserted into an MRI scanner." "'It'll show us how his brain reacts when we show him some pictures.'" "He's got a hole in his sock... ..but I'm pretty sure it won't affect the results." "That's his brother." "His sister and his girlfriend." "James' brain is one of a number which has been scanned to see how they recognise people very close to them." "What's going on in the brain here?" "What we've found is activity of parts of the reward network which you can see here, in what's called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex..." "Oh, yeah." "..which is involved in positive mood, causing a sort of feel-good factor, if you like." "But that's only half the experiment." "This time he's shown pictures of food brands he's familiar with." "'The results are very similar, even down to the bit of the brain we use to recognise faces.'" "Although these aren't actual faces, it seems that these brands are being perceived in the same way that we recognise friends and family, and we have these kind of semantic meanings that, you know, they're positive associations." "Right, so our relationship with the very big, very familiar brands is almost like they're part of our family." "You could interpret it that way, exactly." "If I was a large brand, for example Heinz, and I saw this sort of activity triggered by my product, how should I feel about that?" "I should be feeling pretty pleased about that because that's what marketers attempt to do, to make their brands part of your world and to make them socially significant to you." "It's quite something to realise that a food brand is as familiar and as friendly to us as members of our own friends and family are." "'It certainly seems to help to explain why they're always in my cupboard." "'And how just the sight of the label can change our taste buds.'" "It makes you think about the brands in a different way because a lot of them have actually been around for decades." "They're so familiar, we can't remember a time before they appeared." "I'm Ivy and I'm 91 years old." "But is Ivy older or younger than Bird's Custard?" "Older." "Older." "Probably older..." "I reckon she'd be younger." "I think she's younger." "I think she's older." "Actually, Ivy is younger by 82 years." "Bird's Custard is 173 years old." "I'm Joan and I'm 80." "But is Joan older or younger than McVitie's?" "Younger." "Younger." "Probably older." "Older." "Older." "Yeah, older." "I think it's old but I don't think it's that old." "Older?" "Older." "Actually, Joan's younger by exactly 100 years." "McVitie's is 180 years old." "I've found out that the vast majority of new food brands fail." "But it's hardly surprising when you consider who they're competing against." "These brands who we consider to be almost as familiar as our friends and family." "What I'd like to know is, the ones that do succeed, how do they manage to get into our affections?" "While I'm discussing this question under a Coke umbrella, the place to look for the answer crops up." "Red Bull is a very interesting case because they don't make anything at all." "It's an Austrian marketing company called Red Bull." "That's it!" "It's just a brand." "It is just a brand, without any manufacturing plants or anything." "'A young food superbrand - sounds like something I should look at.'" "It is the definitive brand." "If Red Bull was a person, they'd be young." "Always there, always bubbly, always up for a laugh." "Quite independent, bit arty, Bit irresponsible." "Hyperactive, excitable, adventurous." "Just completely off their face." "I think Red Bull would get on my nerves if they were a person." "Once upon a time, there was a Thai health drink called Krating Daeng, which means Red Bull in Thai." "Along came an Austrian - Dietrich Mateschitz - marketing genius and toothpaste salesman." "Krating Daeng contains stimulants like caffeine, taurine, glucose and sugar." "So after drinking it as a cure for jet lag, Mateschitz had the idea of selling Krating Daeng in Europe as an energy drink." "He made a deal with the Thai manufacturers." "They would provide him with the drink, with some tweaks, and he would repackage it and sell it in Europe, and they'd split the company 50/50." "Red Bull was born." "For me, the most amazing thing about Red Bull is the amount of money they spend on getting their name plastered all over high octane sports." "They own a couple of Formula One teams, a NASCAR team, a race track, two or three football teams, a hockey team, an air race - the list goes on." "I'd like to ask Red Bull about all this promotion but they've told me they never discuss their marketing." "'I'm heading to their hometown anyway to have a snoop around.'" "We're just approaching the airport in Salzburg and we hear that there's this Hanger-7 in which Red Bull keep some remarkable aeroplanes." "What's this?" "!" "There's a massive hanger here that's just got loads and loads of planes in it." "I can't go in with the cameras but Hanger-7 is open to visitors." "It's absolutely amazing in there." "There's World War II bombers, there's jet aircraft, display aircraft, the helicopters, racing cars, racing motorbikes." "They've got four fighter jets that do aerobatic displays." "Flipping heck, they've got plenty of money." "If they stop selling Red Bull, there's a lot of bills to pay round here." "'I've managed to track down the ex-head of Red Bull UK to explain Mateschitz's mega-bucks sport habit.'" "What was the thinking behind endorsing all these Formula One teams, football teams?" "Let's start with what a brand - what I think, anyway - what a brand is." "A brand is consumer service, or a consumer product that has both a personality and... a reputation." "He's got his product, Red Bull." "He must communicate with the consumer in order to get him on side, so he has used, he has built, properties like Red Bull Racing, like the Red Bull Air Race, like Flugtag, etc, etc, etc, none of which are sponsorship deals." "It wasn't a Formula One sponsorship." "He bought the team." "It wasn't..." "It wasn't a Red Bull Air Race - he saw something, let's sponsor it." "No, he invented the sport." "How does that compared to, say, Coke?" "Coke spend a gigantic amount of money on promotion." "They sponsor the Olympics, and football, the World Cup and..." "I love what you're saying right now, and therein lies the big difference between Coca-Cola and Red Bull - they sponsor." "They're using somebody else's value to hang their hat on." "We don't." "It's Red Bull start to finish." "Right." "Cut it down the middle, it says Red Bull inside." "Absolutely." "And, by God, when we do it we're going to control it so you will have a great time." "You will go back and say, "Those are the right people."" "You will say, "These guys are inside this stuff."" "By buying up exciting sports and putting their name all over them," "Red Bull have created a personality for their fizzy drink." "But you can go off personalities." "When Mateschitz bought his local football team apparently he got some Salzburg unions hot under the collar." "So much so that they set up their own rival team." "I've arranged to meet some of them at the stadium that they've built." "Yeah, not that one, that's the Red Bull Stadium." "Yeah, that one." "So what happened when Red Bull arrived at the football club?" "Austria Salzburg was the only football team in Salzburg for 60 years and Red Bull came and said we want to have nothing to do with tradition." "We are a marketing strategy." "You got new skirts and new trousers and new kits, yeah." "So instead of coming in and helping an existing football club, they basically wanted their own football club?" "Yes, it's not football as it was 70 or 80 years before." "It's a new kind of opera." "The lights go on and the people come, the crowd is sitting and saying, "Hello."" "It's like cabaret.." "They make something completely different from football." "'This lot feel drowned by the corporate marketing machine." "'But tonight, at the other end of town, there's a game on.'" "We're driving up to the Red Bull Salzburg stadium." "'How do fans here feel?" "After all, Red Bull have put a lot of money into their team.'" "There's quite a contrast to this stadium and the one we've been to." "This is brand new." "Absolutely state of the art and the interesting thing is, wherever you look, the only signage you can see is Red Bull." "Basically, they've kind of removed any traces of the original football club from it." "You can understand why traditional fans might be a bit irritated by what's happened because there is no evidence that this is anything other than a brand new football club." "There's no history, no sense of this club existing before Red Bull got involved." "If you look at the club's badge, even, it's just a Red Bull logo." "The past no longer exists." "Everything you can see, touch, feel is a Red Bull-branded football club." "Is it in danger of just being a brand rather than a football club?" "Yes, I think that." "If you go into the fan shop, there is only Red Bull and it's everywhere the same." "Sometimes you miss a little bit the old Salzburg but I think it's just..." "It's a new club and new fans." "It's all young fans." "It must cost an absolute fortune." "Absolutely, we would spend somewhere around... just a kind of round number - 25% of revenue on marketing." "What would happen if you took that away?" "If you were on a respirator and I took it away, or cut it down by half, you wouldn't survive quite as long or quite as well, would you?" "No." "But I'm not really well if I'm on a respirator." "I mean Red Bull's in rude health, isn't it?" "Yeah, it is, but that respiration, that's it's source of energy." "That is what..." "It doesn't have lungs of its own." "Red Bull's sports activities are so successful that they now make a lot of their money out of them." "So are they a drinks company, or a sports company?" "As they were started, like Coca-Cola, not by someone from the drinks business but by someone from the world of marketing, maybe they're really a marketing company who just happens to sell drinks." "And I've also found here another drinks superbrand started by someone who has a marketing background, and they've even developed their own language." "What's all that about?" "Tall, skinny..." "Double decaf..." "Mocha." "Ice..." "Grande." "Soya..." "Extra dry." "Double shot." "Caramel." "Vanilla." "Mixed berry." "Whipped cream..." "Latte macchiato." "Americano." "Chocolate..." "Cappuccino." "Frappuccino." "Babyccino." "Green tea." "Thai Chi." "Mocha-Choca Mochaccino..." "With wings." "What's "with wings"?" "To go." "Now I can find out something I've been wanting to know for ages." "How can Starbucks charge £3 for a cup of coffee?" "If Starbucks were a person they'd be posh, and stylish, and into art and photography." "Quite intelligent, been to uni." "Warm, welcoming, they'd never shout at you." "Environmentalist." "Quite materialistic though." "No substance." "Maybe be in the media industry." "A bit anxious and jittery." "Like Katie Price, it's everywhere but you're sick of it, you know?" "Yeah!" "Starbucks as we know it was the brain child of one man." "Howard Schultz had a degree in marketing." "He was a killer photocopier salesman before moving on to sell ground coffee for a tiny company in Seattle called Starbucks." "They didn't sell drinks at the time, only the dry stuff." "Coffee in the US was out of style and lousy." "On a trip to Milan," "Schultz had a coffee vision, selling the Italian coffee experience to America." "He went back to Seattle, borrowed a load of money from the bank and bought out the owners of Starbucks and turned the shop into a cafe." "Tall caramel macchiatto, double..." "It was the first evolution of that store design and I was very involved in that because I wanted to make sure we got it right, and the beverage really needed to come to life." "The romance of the beverage was going to play a more important and a more critical role." "'Romance of the beverage?" "'" "Coffee orders aren't the only strange language that Starbucks speaks." "Anyway, he obviously knows what he means because the shop was so successful that soon Schultz opened several more." "In early 1991, he did something which hadn't been done before - he opened another Starbucks directly opposite his most successful coffee shop." "Soon, both were flourishing." "He'd spotted that each section of the cross roads had a unique flow of pedestrians, so he could bring in thousands of new customers by putting a Starbucks on every corner." "How sort of crazy was their expansion and how mental did they go for, you know, opening stores around the world?" "Umm, yes, mental is probably the right thing." "The thing about Starbucks was they would borrow a lot of money, or they can raise money on the stock market quickly, and with that money, they can go in and usually either buy up a local operator or they will just buy" "as many places, locations, key locations as they can." "They now have around 17,000 Starbucks in 50 countries but that massive expansion has a downside." "Apart from being seen as the McDonald's for the middle classes, opening stores on every corner means putting other local coffee shops out of business." "Starbucks have been targeted by anti-capitalist demonstrators after becoming a symbol of the corporate takeover of high streets and communities." "We're in Vancouver trying to get a taxi to take us to Adbusters." "'I'm here to find out more about the resistance movement.'" "They're very cynical about the whole thing." "Nice to meet you, welcome to Adbusters." "Thank you." "Nice little place you have." "Yeah." "It's kind of like an anarchist club house." "Really?" "Anarchist..." "Hang on, what are we going to do?" "Start smashing things?" "Setting fire to things?" "Yeah, breaking windows." "Wooo!" "You mounted a campaign against Starbucks." "This "No Starbucks Day", was it?" "Yeah!" "It's actually not a day, it's still going on." "It's basically..." "No Starbucks Lifetime?" "Just don't go to Starbucks, and find your independent coffee shop, wherever that may be." "Support that, you pump money back into your local economy and also you can spark a community there." "'But why can't Starbucks be a community coffee shop?" "'They're in the community and they sell coffee.'" "I'm Kalle." "Hello, Kalle." "Let's go to my office." "Why can't a big brand offer the same sort of experience as an independent shop?" "Theoretically, I think they could." "If they were for real, if the people who were running it were really, you know, if their corporate culture was about creating community." "But I think they're not for real." "They are just in the business of making as much money as possible for their shareholders, which is their mandate, and they will turn themselves green, or turn themselves community, or they will rework their brand," "and do anything to have more market share." "But a lot of it isn't authentic." "Romantic Milano, where Howard Schultz had his original vision of what a coffee house should be." "'Why not let the Milanese decide if Starbucks is the real deal?" "'" "Starbucks coffee?" "Starbucks?" "Scusi, scusi, Starbucks?" "Coffee?" "Starbucks?" "Bucks?" "Starbucks?" "No." "No, I don't know." "'But I can't find a real Starbucks, so I'm going to a real Italian coffee house 'to see how the original grande double-shot mocha frappuccino 'measures up to the Starbucks version.'" "Hello, is it possible to get a grande, double-shot, half-skinny, half-fat, mocha frappuccino?" "It's possible not." "A grande, double-shot mocha frappuccino, half-skinny, half-fat, with the hazelnut syrup and, like, a cinnamon sprinkle?" "Cinnamon?" "Cinnamon sprinkles?" "'This wasn't quite the reaction I'd hoped for.'" "Mmmm, do you have Starbucks Coffee in." "Starbucks?" "Yes." "No, no." "There is an old tradition - coffee in Italy is espresso and..." "And that's it?" "Yeah, yeah." "For the people of Italy, this is the authentic coffee experience." "It's not about mocha-frappa-skinny-dry whatever." "Lovely drop, ah..." "Apparently, there are no Starbucks in Italy." "In 2007, they said it was out of humility and respect." "Or maybe because it really isn't Italian coffee culture and they didn't want to risk an embarrassing failure." "'But if it's not Italian coffee culture, then what is it?" "'" "This is just pure theatre." "Even as you enter the store, you have a velvet curtain." "It's like a stage." "All this is a very elaborate and carefully crafted stage set." "The coffee house experience is as much a psychological experience, an emotional experience, as it is a physical one." "£2.90." "Can we spend £2.90 on a cup of coffee?" "Is that all right?" "£2.90?" "Would you like anything else?" "How did they get to the point where they could charge so much for a cup of coffee?" "Don't think the price, think the values." "If you look at Starbucks' mission statement, "We are here,"" "they say, "to inspire and nurture the human spirit."" "The issue with superbrands, all the time, it's a battle of hearts and minds." "That statement could've come out of a religion." "The idea is this is no cup of coffee." "Look, you've got little embossed Starbucks logo there, the size of the cup, the styling of the cup, the environment it's drunk in, the type of company that produces the cups, that produces the coffee, the environment," "it's all creating a sense of belonging to something that is a bit more substantial than just drinking a cup of coffee, because you wouldn't pay £3 for just a cup of coffee." "What's the point?" "'Starbucks is a minutely crafted corporate version 'of your community coffee shop, on thousands of street corners around the world.'" "Adbusters were right - it's not the real thing but for most of us it doesn't matter, because that's still what it represents to us." "It seems to me that's the secret of the food superbrands, and that's how they get into my cupboards." "Sure, their food tastes nice, but there's a lot of food that tastes nice." "You've got to offer more than taste if you want to get into the inner circle." "I only buy Starbucks on pay day..." "You have to represent an idea that we all like." "Even on a down day, for me, I have to tell you, I go get a Happy Meal." "One that appeals to all ages..." "My oldest daughter is 22." "Her first word was Coke." "Her second word was Mommy." "..and all different cultures." "And then make sure everybody knows about it." "Who doesn't want to be happy?" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"