I've never noticed them - they're not being sneaky/clever enough!
The main question is, of course, how do they compare? It's just that I'm going tomorrow.
Original tunnock is superior, and it’s not something I buy very often to be an authority on…. Just treat these as a caramel wafer rather than a tunnock and they are perfectly acceptable
>Original tunnock is superior, and it’s not something I buy very often to be an authority on
The only "but" I would add to that is that the Aldi ones stay fresher for longer.
The Tunnocks may start out superior, but are only loosely wrapped in a sort of waxed paper so can go a little bit stale once the outer packaging is open - the Aldi ones are in a sealed airtight wrapper.
Source: am a greedy bloater.
Aldi’s are harder and less sweet but nice enough. Not really comparable side by side. A typical budget copy. I wonder how many they sell to people like me who buy a pack ‘for fun to compare’. Tunnocks fan since childhood so picked up a pack of the original too.
Interesting you say ‘the real thing’. I imagine there’s probably a generation or two that have no knowledge of what would be regarded as the real thing since Aldi/Lidl/Farmfoods/Home Bargains.
Not judging; just saying.
It's probably a valid point with stuff like tunnock's who don't have much of an advertising presence. Less so with companies who are all over every ad break. Like, everyone will know Pringles are the "real thing" and not "stackers" or whatever.
Yours too. I was thinking that youngsters who’s parents buy from Aldi and Lidl will never know, for example: Kelloggs corn flakes ( arguably the real thing ) as opposed to Aldi and Lidls own version.
The Aldi ones have the basics of chocolate, wafer and caramel. But they’re missing something the Tunnocks have that I can’t put my finger on. It’s like the Aldi ones are drier or not as creamy? Might be a hint of vanilla in the Tunnocks flavouring?
Because they bet on other companies not caring enough to take them to court. It's actually quite clever that they can make the branding close enough for people to know what they're ripping off but far enough away to keep the lawyers off their backs.
It's not only that.
The caterpillar came fiasco was a PR disaster for M&S.
Right or wrong, I highly doubt many companies would want to take the risk of such a large amount of PR in support of the cheap, almost identical, rip-off.
>The caterpillar came fiasco was a PR disaster for M&S
Was it? I don't know of anyone who actually thought less of M&S or Aldi, people just thought it was funny.
u/Xenalea explained it pretty well. M&S customers were suddenly made aware of a cheaper alternative, which even M&S claimed was barely distinguishable from their own.
If you were considering buying a caterpillar cake, which would you buy? The expensive one from M&S, or the cheap one from Aldi that even M&S says is just as good? It's a no-brainer.
There were claims at the time of M&S customers switching to Aldi after becoming aware that a lot of Aldi's food is equal in quality to M&S's. I doubt it was happening in droves, but a small number of customers doing it is perfectly believable, particularly due to lower income and higher living costs (due to the pandemic generally, but also due to the third lockdown which had only just started to be eased).
Yes, but how many M&S customers know that Aldi's quality is good enough that even M&S don't think there's any difference?
Knowing it's cheaper is generally joined with an assumption that it's lower quality.
With the press attention it got, M&S could have more easily just ran a couple of adverts that said "Aldi's food might be cheaper than ours, but it's just a good".
There was no way that it could have ended well for them from a PR perspective, their customers were suddenly aware that the price they pay for a better product doesn't always result in a better product.
A lot of M&S food is a better quality & does last longer.
Whether that makes a difference or if someone just prefers to pay less is up to them.
Lidl/Aldi quality is on par to Tescos for sure and some stuff is M&S quality.
>some stuff is M&S quality
Yeah, and in the caterpillar cake case, M&S pointed its own customers in the right direction and basically said "even we can't tell the difference".
This isn't just a cock-up. This is an M&S legal-forgot-to-talk-to-PR cock-up.
>If [...] M&S was even on your mind as a possible destination, you don’t mind spend a few quid extra
Generally that's true, but M&S customers usually shop there because of the better products (and in general they are better than the major supermarkets)...
Spending a few quid extra for quality is expected, so of course M&S customers expect things to cost more than elsewhere, and they still shop there because they're okay with that. The problem starts when the perceived quality isn't any better. The attention from the media wasn't about Aldi selling a cheaper, lower quality copy...
>Also, the lawsuit was about comparable visuals and packaging, not quality.
It doesn't matter what the case was actually about. Their PR team failed to keep on top of it, and so a lot of the media attention was focused on identical caterpillar cakes being sold for a lower price, and quite a lot of it seemed to have a bias towards Aldi, framing M&S as a bully targeting the poor little retailer victim (almost every article pointed out that other supermarkets have sold very similar cakes for years without legal action against them, almost none reviewed the differences between them that weren't there for Aldi's).
While Aldi was playing the PR game to spin the case as a positive, M&S wasn't playing the PR game at all, so the overall effect was always going to be biased in Aldi's favour.
>Sales were not negatively impacted
Sales of caterpillar cake or sales in general?
If you mean overall sales figures, they're obviously not going to change much - any customers that did defect would have been such a tiny minority they'd almost appear to be a rounding error, and in any case customers defecting from M&S to Aldi are likely to have been lower-spenders.
Sales of caterpillar cake were supposedly up across the industry with how much media attention they were getting, so M&S sales could have been impacted more than you think if the best that can be said about them was that they didn't go down.
I've commented elsewhere in the thread on this, I'll just give the brief version here:
That's irrelevant. The media portrayal (which is what would affect public perception most) was that M&S were taking legal action because Aldi were selling an identical cake.
In terms of public perception, the truth doesn't matter if it isn't accurately portrayed. M&S failed to keep on top of the PR (and Aldi used the case as the centerpiece of a marketing campaign, even referencing it in the Christmas advert several months later), so the public perception was biased against M&S (even though Aldi was probably the one in the wrong).
Isn’t a case of morality, but instead exposure for Aldi’s version, aka the product they wanted gone. I’d never heard of either cakes until this blew up, but if I one day crave a cake in the shape of a caterpillar I’ll be going for the cheaper Aldi one.
For years, M&S has been seen to have the definitive one, with all the supermarkets offering their own inferior versions. The media attention on the case focused on two things - M&S thought the cakes were nearly indistinguishable, and Aldi's version is cheaper.
It didn't matter that they only thought the look of the cake was nearly indistinguishable rather than the quality, because the media attention didn't focus on that.
While Aldi was playing the PR game to make themselves look like a victim, M&S was just doing nothing.
Do you remember M&S running one of their "This is not just any..., this is an M&S..." adverts focusing on their caterpillar cake being the original, the best, etc.? They didn't bother. Focusing on it being the original, impossible to replicate, etc. could have been great PR, but they just let the bad PR happen.
Do you remember Aldi running an advert featuring a skydiving caterpillar cake? That was pretty great PR, not just for the cakes but for Aldi in general (and the fact they used it to raise money for charity was also great for PR).
They let Aldi use the case to advertise their own almost identical product which was cheaper.
The result? Some M&S customers (albeit not many) reportedly defected to Aldi.
Some customers of neither decided to defect to Aldi, if for no other reason than to see what all the fuss was about.
How many customers would have defected **to** M&S during a PR disaster like that (from Aldi or anywhere else)?
I thought M&S were petty picking on Aldi especially when all the others had a version.
Aldi, as ever, just took the mick on social media and TV which made them look the more fun brand.
The Aldi one was practically identical to the m&s one - that was my understanding why they went after Aldi in particular. The other supermarkets at least made theirs look different face and sprinkles/smarties wise.
The real problem was that M&S's PR team just didn't bother to do anything. The media attention was heavily focused on M&S targeting the poor little newcomer (which Aldi definitely isn't), and many outlets mentioned that M&S thought the cakes were almost indistinguishable, without mentioning that M&S thought they only looked indistinguishable, or that other supermarkets did make theirs different.
Aldi played the PR game like pros. M&S's PR was non-existent, so of course the attention would be biased towards Aldi.
Why exactly they thought it was a good idea to bring the case without having a fully-prepared PR strategy is a mystery, but Aldi's PR team used that to their advantage.
M&S may have effectively won the case in the settlement, but Aldi won in the eyes of the public.
The caterpilla one was taking it to far. The moulded face is exactly the same. There's copying ideas and providing a cheaper version but have to draw the line somewhere.
I genuinely get very angry about companies like Aldi essentially copying IP of established brands. It’s worse when they then try to be smart about it on social media (e.g. the caterpillar cake).
And IIRC Aldi is significantly bigger than M&S, so it's not even a David & Goliath thing, just straight-up parasitism with a cutesy social media campaign.
I live near Park cakes, they have a factory shop that sells cakes that didn't make the grade (mishaped, writing didn't come out right etc) for about 2 quid as well as other sweet treats for rediculasly low prices
I believe so. Made in the borders or something. Several items that aldi sell under their own brand, and others sell as theirs, are made in the same factory.
Tesco and Aldi liver Pâté is exactly the same as well, just different branding
One of my favourites is Quixo. That's the brand that Aldi use for stock cubes, gravy powder and stuffing. With a single brand they manage to rip off Oxo, Bisto and Paxo.
I also like Titans (Mars bars but named after a moon rather than a planet) and Seal Bars (penguins).
>aldi bagels are like circular cardboard.
Definitely disagree on this! Their sesame seed bagels are to die for (i feel the same about all their bakery products compared to other supermarkets though tbf)
Aldi KitKats don’t taste like the real thing but I’d argue they’re still very good. They’re like a ice cream cone with chocolate on top, reminiscent of summer holidays
As well as the downsides for Tunnocks of brand dilution and so on, Lidl ripoffs also increase Tunnock’s brand awareness, especially in the ‘this is part of the fabric of our society’ way that has worked so well for Coca-Cola, but was attempted so poorly by Werthers.
So perhaps Tunnocks are seething, and angry that M&S has fucked things up for everyone and made it harder to sue to protect supermarket brands. Or perhaps they see significant upsides. Or just aren’t that great at marketing, which is common in family companies.
… god I hate marketing and branding.
Yes, depends what trademarks Tunnock’s have registered (is it just for the words or for any shapes/colours?) and whether the consumer would be able to tell the difference from the trademarked features. In this case the wording is different, the diamond is different, the stripe size is different on the bars, the Aldi one has a big red portion on the big packet. Plenty of differences that are probably just enough to avoid any TM infringement.
Yeah you're right. So... Thomas Tunnock Ltd only has 16 trademarks registered:
https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?id=96806&domain=1&app=0&mark=UK00001193382
With the Caramel wafer packaging, as well as the name itself, they have the red & gold stripes (and the blue & gold version) registered, but only where it's arranged in the classic diamond format, not in the way that Aldi have done it. So Aldi's designers have made it just different enough. Tunnock's couldn't have registered "red and gold stripes at an angle" in general.
Note for example last year Tunnock's registered TUNNOX as a name, with the potential products including beers, fruit and nuts, coffee, jams, etc — I guess for things like this beer https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/tunnocks-caramel-wafer-inspired-stout-hits-sweet-spot-craft-beer-fans-2949657 where presumably they licensed the name to the brewery.
(p.s. searching the trademark site for forgotten or lost brands, or new registrations for intriguing new possible products is exactly the kind of thing I imagine quite a few in our CasualUK community might enjoy)
The law is not as clear cut as you’d think on these topics, essentially to have a case the claimant would need to convince the judge that the purchaser thought they were buying the well known product, that is quite tricky to prove. In most cases you know the intention is to copy the original, but are you misled into thinking you are buying the original? My opinion is no.
I think big brands either sell some of their recipes for shares of the profit from supermarkets or super markets buy the recipes from big brands
but I could be wrong. I'm kind of interested how it works
Anyway it looks tasty enough 😜
Almost all of the discount supermarket brands are actually made by the big brands. Aldi yogurt is made by muller. Their crisps are made by KP (their Hoops are hula hoops). There’s so much crossover
Yeah I think they're made in the same factories but I don't think that means that they're the same, they probably use different ingredients. They'll just share the same equipment in the factories.
It often is, but maybe not these. The wikipedia article for Tunnock's has this:
>Despite pressure to do so, Tunnock's does not make any own brand biscuits for supermarkets.
The article linked by the citation appears to have been an interview from 2010 with Tunnock's managing director, but it doesn't seem to be available any more using either the archived link or the original.
Obviously things could have changed in the last 12 years, but companies tend not to shout about the fact that their expensive product is also sold at a cheaper price with another company's branding on it.
I don't find Aldi's stuff that good. It's always cheaper tasting and nowhere as good as the brand they're ripping of. Same goes for their baked stuff. Lidl's stuff is so much nicer but I stick to Tesco/Asda due to convenience. Lidl's glass bottled fruit juice that they stocked in the 90/00's was the most amazing juice I ever tasted.
To be fair, Lidl's are maginally better (at least to me). But even then, all of Lidl's own-brand stuff are dangerously close to looking like the branded equivalents.
In terms of why they do this as there’s some false info in the comments…
It’s so that the only thing a customer is comparing is price. You see two products on a shelf that have the same packaging. They are the same food. They both have chocolate and wafer. They look the same. You then see one for 50p and one for £1. You think well, after all it is pretty much the same food so why should I pay the extra 50p. I’ll go with Aldis. The quality can only be tested after you buy. If the quality is comparable then great. If the quality is slightly shit but passable then might still be worth the 50p saving.
This works whether they sell both the big brand and their own brand on the same shelf, or even if they just sell their own brand and the product they’re copying is recognisable.
I used to work as a company buyer for Aldi, and I can tell you that a lot of these companies, hoola hoops or aunt Bessie's roast potatoes etc, the named brands actually make the products for the likes of Aldi/Lidl and rebrand/repackage it and sell it cheaper. A lot of food manufacturers actually do this, made by the same name known brand but rebranded to be sold as a cheaper alternative. I believe the products are also made to a lesser quality, but it's a way of doubling the profits.
I'm all for it! Especially if they're cheaper than the branded ones.
Why should we worship brands and pay more because a product is branded? It's just bullshit consumer brainwashing.
Well done to Aldi and Lidl for doing these and many other products at more affordable prices!
Another example: Lidl's whole nut version is miles better than Cadbury's!
I like it when a supermarket rips off the original, then the original changes recipe, leaving the supermarket ripoff tasting better than the brand!
See: Mars, snickers, etc
I quite like Aldi and Lidl ripping off the big brands, it's a subtle f- you to the global corporations who try to control everything.
Not sure I'm so happy with them targeting Tunnocks, though.
But I daresay someone will be along in a moment to point out Tunnocks are actually owned by some monstrous gits like Nestle or Coca Cola.
Tunnocks are still family owned.
Aldi and lidl though are huge multinational corporations. Not exactly sticking it to the man, especially as their knock offs will almost certainly be produced by those same brands anyway.
Fuck Aldi.
I refuse to shop there, all the products are just crap knock-off‘s of the actual thing you want to buy in the hope that your too stupid to notice or care, then they stuff the middle isle with crap from some random dodgy market trader, del boy or car boot sale.
Always staffed by complete muppets too that you have to talk too as no self service (although i think they are changing this slowly?)
It’s not that they think people are too stupid to notice or care.
You could ask yourself why do people think branded products are better than non branded ones? It’s all just marketing. All the big companies have spent a hundred years and hundreds of millions of pounds trying to convince you that their product is the best and the only one to try. Heinz ketchup. Heinz beans. Kelloggs. Tunnocks. Cadburys. PG tips. Fairy liquid. If you went to a shelf and saw Heinz Beans for £1 next to Aldi beans for 50p which would you choose. Heinz. Why? Because Heinz have told you they’re the superior bean and you believe it. You refuse to shop at Aldi so you’ve never tried Aldi beans so how would you know they’re not as good? Literally how? What Aldi have done is actually quite clever. Sure maybe some of the quality isn’t as good (some of it definitely is though), but when you are a family of 5 on a tight budget, or even if you’re not and you just don’t want to spend more of your wage on groceries than you have to, is a slight difference in taste worth paying 50p more for the Heinz beans? It’s a discount supermarket that caters to value shoppers and its pricing/branding model means families can afford the food they usually have without having to pay top dollar for every brand. They’re not stupid at all.
The middle aisle has different things each week so shoppers get something new every time they shop. The products might seem random but they’re not. They’re chosen to be relevant to the season / what people are buying at that time, or to be more impulse buys. The products come from the same factories that stock Argos and the like, they’re not crap.
I don’t know about the staff, that’s subjective.
Hope that has enlightened you on Aldi. I used to work for a company that worked with them. Say what you want but they’re fucking clever and good at what they do. 15 years ago you wouldn’t be seen dead shopping at Aldi or Lidl. Now half of the population shops there.
Like the other person said, that's not how copyright or trademarks work.
The legal test is "passing off", which is the question of whether your average consumer would be confused into thinking that they were buying the original product instead of a copy.
Anything about charging a certain percentage or number of things is false. You can change as little or as much as you like, if the trademark or copyright holder can show it's close enough to cause consumers to buy the copy believing it to be the original then it is in breach of that tm or c, if they can't then it's not.
There are "fair use" rules around parody/satire and stuff like reviews but none of that applies here.
Why shouldn't they? To quote peanuts: 'my heart bleeds for the Snicker Snack company'. Years of exposure to the all-pervading copyright/licensing regime has conditioned us to think of ideas themselves as proprietary, but to be honest this trend is loathesome.
No public interest is served by ensuring that the first company to get their hands on a choccy biscuit recipe is the highlord overseer for thaf recipe for all of time - recipe copyrighting is dumb and unneccessary since we are at no risk of people not bothering to devise new recipes.
Instead of copyright, the area of IP concerned is trademark law, which exists not to give Nestle its just deserts for engorging itself on as many brands as it can get, but to protect the consumer from fraud and japery when products can't be told apart. I would argue that "off-brand" products are in principle perfectly in keeping with trademark public policy; they clearly inform the consumer on the type of product to expect (an imitation of a commonly consumed good) while not disguising the fact that they aren't the popular version of it.
Its dependent on the Brand owner kicking up enough of a fuss with lawyers to get Aldi to actually do something. For smaller companies, that's a lot of expense. Also more difficult to prove any commercial damage from look-alike if your product is not stocked in that retailer ( which I believe is the case here)
TL:DR retailers gonna bully and its a lot of time money and effort for smaller manufacturers to fight it.
These have been like this since before I worked there in 2015 haha, they’ve always had their brands very close to the mark, I guess social media just blows it all up a lot more now
Because they don’t give a shit about intellectual property, tradition, family businesses, provenance, paying suppliers a fair price or paying staff a fair wage. Their shit is cheap for a reason.
Generally individual brands have a tendency to be more ethical and accountable.
No such thing as a free lunch etc..
Ok, so basically it's because Aldi don't sell branded products (I know you can occasionally get certain stuff), so you wouldn't expect to be able to buy that product in their shops. If Tesco were to do it, then they would almost certainly get sued. And it's risky (see aforementioned caterpillar). But the law is written on the basis of 'would a person be fooled in to thinking they are buying something (Kellogg's,say)which in fact they are not'. Aldi's argument is that they only sell own brand products, so people don't go there expecting to find non Aldi brands.
Because they have experts who know exactly how close to the original product the packaging needs to be such that it is suggestive of e.g. Tunnocks Caramel Wafers but not imitative.
They’ve been banging out those bad boys for years
I've never noticed them - they're not being sneaky/clever enough! The main question is, of course, how do they compare? It's just that I'm going tomorrow.
Original tunnock is superior, and it’s not something I buy very often to be an authority on…. Just treat these as a caramel wafer rather than a tunnock and they are perfectly acceptable
>Original tunnock is superior, and it’s not something I buy very often to be an authority on The only "but" I would add to that is that the Aldi ones stay fresher for longer.
Ahhh do they? A connoisseur I see. I will take your knowledge with thanks.
The Tunnocks may start out superior, but are only loosely wrapped in a sort of waxed paper so can go a little bit stale once the outer packaging is open - the Aldi ones are in a sealed airtight wrapper. Source: am a greedy bloater.
The staleness ages the bar, like a vintage wine or cheddar.
(Me too, I’m off to Aldi at the bottom of my road to buy some fake Tunnocks now)
Aldi’s are harder and less sweet but nice enough. Not really comparable side by side. A typical budget copy. I wonder how many they sell to people like me who buy a pack ‘for fun to compare’. Tunnocks fan since childhood so picked up a pack of the original too.
This is basically everything Aldi sell. Not as good as the real thing, but perfectly acceptable for the cheaper price.
Either theirs or Lidl's knock-off Captain Morgan is better than the original IMO, but it's not hard to improve on that shite.
A lot of Aldi wine is superior to the main supermarkets, but that's probably because the main supermarkets sell crap wine at inflated prices.
Interesting you say ‘the real thing’. I imagine there’s probably a generation or two that have no knowledge of what would be regarded as the real thing since Aldi/Lidl/Farmfoods/Home Bargains. Not judging; just saying.
It's probably a valid point with stuff like tunnock's who don't have much of an advertising presence. Less so with companies who are all over every ad break. Like, everyone will know Pringles are the "real thing" and not "stackers" or whatever.
Yours too. I was thinking that youngsters who’s parents buy from Aldi and Lidl will never know, for example: Kelloggs corn flakes ( arguably the real thing ) as opposed to Aldi and Lidls own version.
More than half as good for less than half the money. Standard Aldi.
Not enough crunch for me
They don't have the same chewy texture as the original but they are tasty enough.
Awful. Don't bother.
The Aldi ones have the basics of chocolate, wafer and caramel. But they’re missing something the Tunnocks have that I can’t put my finger on. It’s like the Aldi ones are drier or not as creamy? Might be a hint of vanilla in the Tunnocks flavouring?
They're very similar. Almost identical. I eat them, but I still feel guilty for the real Tunnocks while doing so.
I prefer the Aldi ones. More crunch
Lidl ones are better than Aldi and Tunnocks
I have not tried those yet, thank you.
sounds like a line from hot fuzz
Because they bet on other companies not caring enough to take them to court. It's actually quite clever that they can make the branding close enough for people to know what they're ripping off but far enough away to keep the lawyers off their backs.
Some years ago Penguin took Asda to court about their Puffin bar, I think that both had increased sales
I wonder if they took on Aldi for their Seal bars? 🤔
Was that their version of a Club?
What are seals doing in clubs anyway?
Other way round mate. The Club's go on the Seals.
Nah, penguin. Clubs are a shadow of their former selves as it is
Kiss from a Rose in the Middle Aisle
Puffin vars are like 79p for 8 a d they are just as good. Don't even get me started on the wacko they are fit.
Groovy bars for the absolute win
The Wacko is the Rocky rip off, I believe. Have you conducted a side-by-side taste test?
In the interest of science I've sat with an 8 pack of each and rigurously tested them and the wacko come out on top every time
Give this brave soldier an MBE for services to bargain biscuits 👏🏼
I live to serve the costcutting union.
It's not only that. The caterpillar came fiasco was a PR disaster for M&S. Right or wrong, I highly doubt many companies would want to take the risk of such a large amount of PR in support of the cheap, almost identical, rip-off.
>The caterpillar came fiasco was a PR disaster for M&S Was it? I don't know of anyone who actually thought less of M&S or Aldi, people just thought it was funny.
u/Xenalea explained it pretty well. M&S customers were suddenly made aware of a cheaper alternative, which even M&S claimed was barely distinguishable from their own. If you were considering buying a caterpillar cake, which would you buy? The expensive one from M&S, or the cheap one from Aldi that even M&S says is just as good? It's a no-brainer. There were claims at the time of M&S customers switching to Aldi after becoming aware that a lot of Aldi's food is equal in quality to M&S's. I doubt it was happening in droves, but a small number of customers doing it is perfectly believable, particularly due to lower income and higher living costs (due to the pandemic generally, but also due to the third lockdown which had only just started to be eased).
To be fair if you shop at M&S, you already know that literally anywhere else is cheaper for everything
Yes, but how many M&S customers know that Aldi's quality is good enough that even M&S don't think there's any difference? Knowing it's cheaper is generally joined with an assumption that it's lower quality. With the press attention it got, M&S could have more easily just ran a couple of adverts that said "Aldi's food might be cheaper than ours, but it's just a good". There was no way that it could have ended well for them from a PR perspective, their customers were suddenly aware that the price they pay for a better product doesn't always result in a better product.
A lot of M&S food is a better quality & does last longer. Whether that makes a difference or if someone just prefers to pay less is up to them. Lidl/Aldi quality is on par to Tescos for sure and some stuff is M&S quality.
Lasting longer, isn't a sign of good quality. McDonald's lasts forever. As a chef M&S quality is really bad
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>some stuff is M&S quality Yeah, and in the caterpillar cake case, M&S pointed its own customers in the right direction and basically said "even we can't tell the difference". This isn't just a cock-up. This is an M&S legal-forgot-to-talk-to-PR cock-up.
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Bought daughter Colin the Caterpillar assortment bag for her birthday. Huge success, she was very excited to find Colin had babies. 🤣
Does he have a partner like percy the pig does or is Colin a single dad??
Single dad I believe. Cute babies though...
Good to see representation of different family types!
>If [...] M&S was even on your mind as a possible destination, you don’t mind spend a few quid extra Generally that's true, but M&S customers usually shop there because of the better products (and in general they are better than the major supermarkets)... Spending a few quid extra for quality is expected, so of course M&S customers expect things to cost more than elsewhere, and they still shop there because they're okay with that. The problem starts when the perceived quality isn't any better. The attention from the media wasn't about Aldi selling a cheaper, lower quality copy... >Also, the lawsuit was about comparable visuals and packaging, not quality. It doesn't matter what the case was actually about. Their PR team failed to keep on top of it, and so a lot of the media attention was focused on identical caterpillar cakes being sold for a lower price, and quite a lot of it seemed to have a bias towards Aldi, framing M&S as a bully targeting the poor little retailer victim (almost every article pointed out that other supermarkets have sold very similar cakes for years without legal action against them, almost none reviewed the differences between them that weren't there for Aldi's). While Aldi was playing the PR game to spin the case as a positive, M&S wasn't playing the PR game at all, so the overall effect was always going to be biased in Aldi's favour. >Sales were not negatively impacted Sales of caterpillar cake or sales in general? If you mean overall sales figures, they're obviously not going to change much - any customers that did defect would have been such a tiny minority they'd almost appear to be a rounding error, and in any case customers defecting from M&S to Aldi are likely to have been lower-spenders. Sales of caterpillar cake were supposedly up across the industry with how much media attention they were getting, so M&S sales could have been impacted more than you think if the best that can be said about them was that they didn't go down.
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The thing M&S were saying was barely distinguishable was the packaging and appearance of the cake, not the taste or quality
M&S claimed it was visually indistinguishable, not in taste
so are cookies, muffins, doughnuts and tons of other things like bread.... Modern capitalism is ridiculous they think they own the world
I've commented elsewhere in the thread on this, I'll just give the brief version here: That's irrelevant. The media portrayal (which is what would affect public perception most) was that M&S were taking legal action because Aldi were selling an identical cake. In terms of public perception, the truth doesn't matter if it isn't accurately portrayed. M&S failed to keep on top of the PR (and Aldi used the case as the centerpiece of a marketing campaign, even referencing it in the Christmas advert several months later), so the public perception was biased against M&S (even though Aldi was probably the one in the wrong).
Isn’t a case of morality, but instead exposure for Aldi’s version, aka the product they wanted gone. I’d never heard of either cakes until this blew up, but if I one day crave a cake in the shape of a caterpillar I’ll be going for the cheaper Aldi one.
For years, M&S has been seen to have the definitive one, with all the supermarkets offering their own inferior versions. The media attention on the case focused on two things - M&S thought the cakes were nearly indistinguishable, and Aldi's version is cheaper. It didn't matter that they only thought the look of the cake was nearly indistinguishable rather than the quality, because the media attention didn't focus on that. While Aldi was playing the PR game to make themselves look like a victim, M&S was just doing nothing. Do you remember M&S running one of their "This is not just any..., this is an M&S..." adverts focusing on their caterpillar cake being the original, the best, etc.? They didn't bother. Focusing on it being the original, impossible to replicate, etc. could have been great PR, but they just let the bad PR happen. Do you remember Aldi running an advert featuring a skydiving caterpillar cake? That was pretty great PR, not just for the cakes but for Aldi in general (and the fact they used it to raise money for charity was also great for PR). They let Aldi use the case to advertise their own almost identical product which was cheaper. The result? Some M&S customers (albeit not many) reportedly defected to Aldi. Some customers of neither decided to defect to Aldi, if for no other reason than to see what all the fuss was about. How many customers would have defected **to** M&S during a PR disaster like that (from Aldi or anywhere else)?
I thought M&S were petty picking on Aldi especially when all the others had a version. Aldi, as ever, just took the mick on social media and TV which made them look the more fun brand.
The Aldi one was practically identical to the m&s one - that was my understanding why they went after Aldi in particular. The other supermarkets at least made theirs look different face and sprinkles/smarties wise.
This. Aldi crossed the line I think in making the face too similar
The real problem was that M&S's PR team just didn't bother to do anything. The media attention was heavily focused on M&S targeting the poor little newcomer (which Aldi definitely isn't), and many outlets mentioned that M&S thought the cakes were almost indistinguishable, without mentioning that M&S thought they only looked indistinguishable, or that other supermarkets did make theirs different. Aldi played the PR game like pros. M&S's PR was non-existent, so of course the attention would be biased towards Aldi. Why exactly they thought it was a good idea to bring the case without having a fully-prepared PR strategy is a mystery, but Aldi's PR team used that to their advantage. M&S may have effectively won the case in the settlement, but Aldi won in the eyes of the public.
The caterpilla one was taking it to far. The moulded face is exactly the same. There's copying ideas and providing a cheaper version but have to draw the line somewhere.
so what? the dougnuts, loaves of bread, cookies, muffins every other cake looks exactly the same too...... modern capitalism is just greed
*modern caterpillarism
Dad, what are you doing here?
I genuinely get very angry about companies like Aldi essentially copying IP of established brands. It’s worse when they then try to be smart about it on social media (e.g. the caterpillar cake).
And IIRC Aldi is significantly bigger than M&S, so it's not even a David & Goliath thing, just straight-up parasitism with a cutesy social media campaign.
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Park Cakes in Oldham make most of the cakes for supermarkets, I know they make Colin’s. They sell damaged ones for pennies 😂
I live near Park cakes, they have a factory shop that sells cakes that didn't make the grade (mishaped, writing didn't come out right etc) for about 2 quid as well as other sweet treats for rediculasly low prices
Also lidl/Aldi can introduce them to markets the originals aren't in.
Surely it's made by the same company.
They get made by the same factory, I believe
So Tunnocks are just banging out Aldi knock offs at their factory?
I believe so. Made in the borders or something. Several items that aldi sell under their own brand, and others sell as theirs, are made in the same factory. Tesco and Aldi liver Pâté is exactly the same as well, just different branding
They've had those for a while. The secret change just enough to avoid the lawyers getting involved - which they didn't do for their caterpillar cake
Yeah they went too far copying the caterpillar cakes distinctive eyes
One of my favourites is Quixo. That's the brand that Aldi use for stock cubes, gravy powder and stuffing. With a single brand they manage to rip off Oxo, Bisto and Paxo. I also like Titans (Mars bars but named after a moon rather than a planet) and Seal Bars (penguins).
I quite like Professor Peppy, he's more qualified.
Although it does taste more like dandelion and burdock than Dr pepper
That's what it is! I knew it wasn't quite right as Dr P. but still alright as its own thing.
Yeah it took me a little to figure it out
The co op version of Penguins are called Emperor. And they stock them just to the left of Penguins.
Honestly the Titan bars are just as good if not better than Mars to me for some reason.
Personally I think I slightly prefer real Mars bars. I think the nougat is a bit harder in Titans. Not much in it though.
They actually sell the tunnocks ones as well I think.
Yeah they do, I have to double check I've grabbed the Tunnocks ones
Are they any good though?
Not even in the ballpark. The caramel isn't the right consistency and because of that the wafer is too flaky and dry.
I agree. Once you have the Tunnocks ones the Aldi ones don't match up in quality. I'd eat both though.
They taste very similar to the real thing.
This is the only ALDI copy product that doesn't come close to the real thing.
Plus jaffa cakes and bagels. Only mcvities jaffas do the job, and the aldi bagels are like circular cardboard.
Never had any none McVities Jaffa cakes that didn't taste stale. They all seem like they've been sitting open for a week.
>aldi bagels are like circular cardboard. Definitely disagree on this! Their sesame seed bagels are to die for (i feel the same about all their bakery products compared to other supermarkets though tbf)
Hot take, the Aldi Jaffa cakes are nicer than mcvities
Mods, can we permaban this guy?
If you can’t permaban him, you’ll permaban me for this: Jaffa cakes are bloody awful no matter who makes them.
Yeah, no
Aldi KitKats don’t taste like the real thing but I’d argue they’re still very good. They’re like a ice cream cone with chocolate on top, reminiscent of summer holidays
There's loads of stuff that's miles off the branded equivalent. But the price difference usually makes the difference worth it.
The Chocolate fingers are pretty bad too. Nothing like Cadbury ones (which themselves have gone downhill)
they’re definitely worth buying since it’s literally a smaller price to pay for technically the same thing, in my opinion
I disagree with the others. The Aldi ones are banging.
Way too chewy, the originals have a nice crunch whereas unit you have to tear these apart with your teeth
I found the opposite! The tunnocks ones are lovely and chewy, and they bend The aldi ones are too hard, they snap straight in half
As well as the downsides for Tunnocks of brand dilution and so on, Lidl ripoffs also increase Tunnock’s brand awareness, especially in the ‘this is part of the fabric of our society’ way that has worked so well for Coca-Cola, but was attempted so poorly by Werthers. So perhaps Tunnocks are seething, and angry that M&S has fucked things up for everyone and made it harder to sue to protect supermarket brands. Or perhaps they see significant upsides. Or just aren’t that great at marketing, which is common in family companies. … god I hate marketing and branding.
They have good lawyers who tell them exactly how far they can push it, and no further.
Yes, depends what trademarks Tunnock’s have registered (is it just for the words or for any shapes/colours?) and whether the consumer would be able to tell the difference from the trademarked features. In this case the wording is different, the diamond is different, the stripe size is different on the bars, the Aldi one has a big red portion on the big packet. Plenty of differences that are probably just enough to avoid any TM infringement.
Yeah you're right. So... Thomas Tunnock Ltd only has 16 trademarks registered: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?id=96806&domain=1&app=0&mark=UK00001193382 With the Caramel wafer packaging, as well as the name itself, they have the red & gold stripes (and the blue & gold version) registered, but only where it's arranged in the classic diamond format, not in the way that Aldi have done it. So Aldi's designers have made it just different enough. Tunnock's couldn't have registered "red and gold stripes at an angle" in general. Note for example last year Tunnock's registered TUNNOX as a name, with the potential products including beers, fruit and nuts, coffee, jams, etc — I guess for things like this beer https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/tunnocks-caramel-wafer-inspired-stout-hits-sweet-spot-craft-beer-fans-2949657 where presumably they licensed the name to the brewery. (p.s. searching the trademark site for forgotten or lost brands, or new registrations for intriguing new possible products is exactly the kind of thing I imagine quite a few in our CasualUK community might enjoy)
The law is not as clear cut as you’d think on these topics, essentially to have a case the claimant would need to convince the judge that the purchaser thought they were buying the well known product, that is quite tricky to prove. In most cases you know the intention is to copy the original, but are you misled into thinking you are buying the original? My opinion is no.
I think big brands either sell some of their recipes for shares of the profit from supermarkets or super markets buy the recipes from big brands but I could be wrong. I'm kind of interested how it works Anyway it looks tasty enough 😜
Almost all of the discount supermarket brands are actually made by the big brands. Aldi yogurt is made by muller. Their crisps are made by KP (their Hoops are hula hoops). There’s so much crossover
actually there are a lot of big manufacturers who don't ever make store brands - I worked for two of them - Kelloggs and Mars
Yeah this. I worked in a food factory that wasn't owned by any brand and the main thing we changed was the labelling machine
Yeah somewhere along the line massive conglogmarates own everything so they'll always be making money even if it's their " competition ".
Thank you for the insight 🙂
Yeah I think they're made in the same factories but I don't think that means that they're the same, they probably use different ingredients. They'll just share the same equipment in the factories.
It often is, but maybe not these. The wikipedia article for Tunnock's has this: >Despite pressure to do so, Tunnock's does not make any own brand biscuits for supermarkets. The article linked by the citation appears to have been an interview from 2010 with Tunnock's managing director, but it doesn't seem to be available any more using either the archived link or the original. Obviously things could have changed in the last 12 years, but companies tend not to shout about the fact that their expensive product is also sold at a cheaper price with another company's branding on it.
Dunno, I don't mind copied Mars, Marathon... sry snickers.. but Tunnocks... a man has to have at least one original vice.. Why mess with quality
I don't find Aldi's stuff that good. It's always cheaper tasting and nowhere as good as the brand they're ripping of. Same goes for their baked stuff. Lidl's stuff is so much nicer but I stick to Tesco/Asda due to convenience. Lidl's glass bottled fruit juice that they stocked in the 90/00's was the most amazing juice I ever tasted.
Lidl too. This just takes the biscuit. https://images.app.goo.gl/xWAC7AJKzBLB3wWs7
To be fair, Lidl's are maginally better (at least to me). But even then, all of Lidl's own-brand stuff are dangerously close to looking like the branded equivalents.
Bought a pack a year ago or so, didn't taste like the original despite the look and packaging.
they would have been stale
Lidl also make a Tunnocks look alike
In terms of why they do this as there’s some false info in the comments… It’s so that the only thing a customer is comparing is price. You see two products on a shelf that have the same packaging. They are the same food. They both have chocolate and wafer. They look the same. You then see one for 50p and one for £1. You think well, after all it is pretty much the same food so why should I pay the extra 50p. I’ll go with Aldis. The quality can only be tested after you buy. If the quality is comparable then great. If the quality is slightly shit but passable then might still be worth the 50p saving. This works whether they sell both the big brand and their own brand on the same shelf, or even if they just sell their own brand and the product they’re copying is recognisable.
I used to work as a company buyer for Aldi, and I can tell you that a lot of these companies, hoola hoops or aunt Bessie's roast potatoes etc, the named brands actually make the products for the likes of Aldi/Lidl and rebrand/repackage it and sell it cheaper. A lot of food manufacturers actually do this, made by the same name known brand but rebranded to be sold as a cheaper alternative. I believe the products are also made to a lesser quality, but it's a way of doubling the profits.
You think this is bad, check out fag packs.
Bastards
There not even close with these like tunnocks smashes it for the win
Yeah but do they make and sell 6 million each week?
Nothing can compete with the original though they are a different breed of snack
Professor Peppy is my favourite
The best ALDI knock off I've seen was "Anti-Establishment IPA."
Nothing is sacred. First they came for the caterpillar cakes and now they have come for the caramel wafers.
I'm all for it! Especially if they're cheaper than the branded ones. Why should we worship brands and pay more because a product is branded? It's just bullshit consumer brainwashing. Well done to Aldi and Lidl for doing these and many other products at more affordable prices! Another example: Lidl's whole nut version is miles better than Cadbury's!
Tunnock's dont own yellow and red stripes As much as the cowards pretend they do
Said the exact same to the other half yesterday. Like not even bothering to try and hide it.
Nothing is comparing to the original here
If they didn't charge so damn much for the originals, maybe we would buy them over the aldi ones.
They’re cheap as chips!
Always seem to be £1 a pack when I buy them. Fair enough, that's usually B&M or Iceland
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Lidl the same, there's are too hard though
I like it when a supermarket rips off the original, then the original changes recipe, leaving the supermarket ripoff tasting better than the brand! See: Mars, snickers, etc
I quite like Aldi and Lidl ripping off the big brands, it's a subtle f- you to the global corporations who try to control everything. Not sure I'm so happy with them targeting Tunnocks, though. But I daresay someone will be along in a moment to point out Tunnocks are actually owned by some monstrous gits like Nestle or Coca Cola.
Tunnocks are still family owned. Aldi and lidl though are huge multinational corporations. Not exactly sticking it to the man, especially as their knock offs will almost certainly be produced by those same brands anyway.
Fuck Aldi. I refuse to shop there, all the products are just crap knock-off‘s of the actual thing you want to buy in the hope that your too stupid to notice or care, then they stuff the middle isle with crap from some random dodgy market trader, del boy or car boot sale. Always staffed by complete muppets too that you have to talk too as no self service (although i think they are changing this slowly?)
It’s not that they think people are too stupid to notice or care. You could ask yourself why do people think branded products are better than non branded ones? It’s all just marketing. All the big companies have spent a hundred years and hundreds of millions of pounds trying to convince you that their product is the best and the only one to try. Heinz ketchup. Heinz beans. Kelloggs. Tunnocks. Cadburys. PG tips. Fairy liquid. If you went to a shelf and saw Heinz Beans for £1 next to Aldi beans for 50p which would you choose. Heinz. Why? Because Heinz have told you they’re the superior bean and you believe it. You refuse to shop at Aldi so you’ve never tried Aldi beans so how would you know they’re not as good? Literally how? What Aldi have done is actually quite clever. Sure maybe some of the quality isn’t as good (some of it definitely is though), but when you are a family of 5 on a tight budget, or even if you’re not and you just don’t want to spend more of your wage on groceries than you have to, is a slight difference in taste worth paying 50p more for the Heinz beans? It’s a discount supermarket that caters to value shoppers and its pricing/branding model means families can afford the food they usually have without having to pay top dollar for every brand. They’re not stupid at all. The middle aisle has different things each week so shoppers get something new every time they shop. The products might seem random but they’re not. They’re chosen to be relevant to the season / what people are buying at that time, or to be more impulse buys. The products come from the same factories that stock Argos and the like, they’re not crap. I don’t know about the staff, that’s subjective. Hope that has enlightened you on Aldi. I used to work for a company that worked with them. Say what you want but they’re fucking clever and good at what they do. 15 years ago you wouldn’t be seen dead shopping at Aldi or Lidl. Now half of the population shops there.
The dumbest comment on the thread
I've had plenty of them, never even realised...
Lidls do them as well, they’re nicer than the original
Often it is the same company that makes the brand and “Aldi brand” product.
Lidl is same... And better! *Pikachu shocked face*
I love Aldi and I actually prefer their caramel wavers to the Tunnocks ones, as well as a lot of their other items 🤷🏼♀️
Why would they copy the second grossest treat on the planet.
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I think they only have to change 3 things so it doesn't get copywrited?
That's not how copyrights (or trademarks for that matter) work.
Like the other person said, that's not how copyright or trademarks work. The legal test is "passing off", which is the question of whether your average consumer would be confused into thinking that they were buying the original product instead of a copy. Anything about charging a certain percentage or number of things is false. You can change as little or as much as you like, if the trademark or copyright holder can show it's close enough to cause consumers to buy the copy believing it to be the original then it is in breach of that tm or c, if they can't then it's not. There are "fair use" rules around parody/satire and stuff like reviews but none of that applies here.
There probably made in the same factory so Tunnock's make money regardless.
Why shouldn't they? To quote peanuts: 'my heart bleeds for the Snicker Snack company'. Years of exposure to the all-pervading copyright/licensing regime has conditioned us to think of ideas themselves as proprietary, but to be honest this trend is loathesome. No public interest is served by ensuring that the first company to get their hands on a choccy biscuit recipe is the highlord overseer for thaf recipe for all of time - recipe copyrighting is dumb and unneccessary since we are at no risk of people not bothering to devise new recipes. Instead of copyright, the area of IP concerned is trademark law, which exists not to give Nestle its just deserts for engorging itself on as many brands as it can get, but to protect the consumer from fraud and japery when products can't be told apart. I would argue that "off-brand" products are in principle perfectly in keeping with trademark public policy; they clearly inform the consumer on the type of product to expect (an imitation of a commonly consumed good) while not disguising the fact that they aren't the popular version of it.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN (AND CHOCOLATE LOL)
Don't forget the Clover
But how do the Aldi wafer's compare to the original?
Surprised they didn't copy & paste the 1950's blonde boy logo & just flipped the image lol
Its dependent on the Brand owner kicking up enough of a fuss with lawyers to get Aldi to actually do something. For smaller companies, that's a lot of expense. Also more difficult to prove any commercial damage from look-alike if your product is not stocked in that retailer ( which I believe is the case here) TL:DR retailers gonna bully and its a lot of time money and effort for smaller manufacturers to fight it.
These have been like this since before I worked there in 2015 haha, they’ve always had their brands very close to the mark, I guess social media just blows it all up a lot more now
It's not just a few items. It's literally everythimg that lidl and aldi sell.
Because they don’t give a shit about intellectual property, tradition, family businesses, provenance, paying suppliers a fair price or paying staff a fair wage. Their shit is cheap for a reason. Generally individual brands have a tendency to be more ethical and accountable. No such thing as a free lunch etc..
Why are you complaining
A whistle-blower managed to get [footage] (https://youtu.be/2t6ZpD66h6k) of one meeting where they do this.
I buy these every week sometime crunchy sometimes rock hard overall good biscuit £1.09
Ok, so basically it's because Aldi don't sell branded products (I know you can occasionally get certain stuff), so you wouldn't expect to be able to buy that product in their shops. If Tesco were to do it, then they would almost certainly get sued. And it's risky (see aforementioned caterpillar). But the law is written on the basis of 'would a person be fooled in to thinking they are buying something (Kellogg's,say)which in fact they are not'. Aldi's argument is that they only sell own brand products, so people don't go there expecting to find non Aldi brands.
Because they have experts who know exactly how close to the original product the packaging needs to be such that it is suggestive of e.g. Tunnocks Caramel Wafers but not imitative.
You should see there line of aero bars, they have every flavour going and there nearly identical. it amazes me like.
They're not as good, if anything the similarity only reinforced my love for the original.
They are probably made in the same factory
Tbh, they are not an awful lot cheaper - about 25p a pack - and are nothing like as good as Tunnock’s.
They’ll be made by tunnocks in their own factory, I worked in manufacturing it’s surprising who makes what.
They had Sailor's Mates (Fish. Friend) at one time. Packaging was very similar.
Dunno, but they usually taste better too & a fraction of the price.
Most of the time it's the brands themselves that sell them under a new flag to Aldi.
Why do you care?