Abstract
Food packages must communicate mandatory information, but they can also be used for marketing practices such as promotion and are a communication pathway from industry to consumer. Considering that cows are the main beings affected by the dairy industry, it is essential to scrutinise what dairy product packages convey about them. The aims of this study are to analyse the occurrence of reference to cows on the packaging of dairy products in popular supermarket retail stores in Brazil and the United Kingdom and to discuss ethical implications of promotional practices of dairy producers. We found that in both countries most packaging does not refer to cows at all. In the UK, an average of 31% of the packaging used some visual reference to cows, and in Brazil an average of 15% of packaging used some visual reference to cows. We identified four modalities of cow signifiers with a strong common appeal to nature that reflect and reaffirm an idyllic narrative of milk production. Our findings reflect the concept of absent referent, coined by Carol Adams, both on the packages containing some type of cow representation and on the packages not containing any. Considering that it might influence the consumer’s understanding and attitude towards cows, we highlight that the lack of adequate information about cows’ conditions and the obscuring of problematic issues in cows’ exploitation through the globalization of the happy cow narrative are two important issues to be placed on the Marketing Ethics concerns.
Highlights
Regarding the occurrence of dairy packages referring to cows in the visited stores, we found that from the total of packages in the UK stores, 31% (37 of 120) of packages from Asda, 32% (36 of 113) from Tesco, and 31% (12 of 39) from Aldi had some cow representation
In Brazil, from a total of 24 graphic design patterns of packages referring to cows, we found three indexical signs: a representation of a cow’s udder under the label ‘integral’ on the milk package, another was a representation of cow spots along the milk package, and the other was an ice cream package displaying in the corner of the front side of the package a representation of an old-style milk bucket stamped with cow spots
The more obvious way is the absence of any kind of reference to cows on most packages, and the more subtle way is that when there is some representation of cow, it usually did not correspond to a real dairy cow, but to a fictitious character, in both cases the cow’s subjectivity is hidden even on packages displaying some cow representation
Summary
There is an ongoing debate about public awareness and attitudes regarding animal product consumption. Citizen opinions on animal welfare issues differs widely amongst different countries and studied groups, indicating there is no common ground about the relevance of the conditions of life of animals raised for food in consumers’ choice. Social psychologists have shown that people tend to evaluate animals’ characteristics according to which purpose these animals are used for, regardless of their cognitive, emotional, or species-specifics capacities [1]. The emergence of the field of animal ethics in recent decades has increased scrutiny over the construction of meanings, moral values and choices that affect animals. Marketing is known to have strong influence on consumer behaviour [2], either for more sustainable choices or for the maintenance of pre-existing harmful practices [3].
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