Sainsbury’s is Talking Pollacks
Monday, April 6th, 2009 by Rob Brown
There is something very fishy about about the news that Sainsbury’s is to rebrand the pollack as ‘colin’ (that’s with a heavily accented French pronunciation by the way). Apparently their shoppers are fighting shy of asking for a “pair of fresh pollacks” at the fish counter.
The story has made quite a splash today but much of it doesn’t hold water. Firstly the French for pollack is lieu jaune and ‘colin’ is a hake. Secondly we are very close to April Fool’s day (that’s Poisson D’Avril in French). Is this an April Fool idea that Sainsbury’s thought would grow legs and get more coverage? If so they weren’t wrong.
There is also new ‘Colin’ packaging designed by Wayne Hemingway and based on the work of Jackson Pollock (please note not ‘Jackson Colin’). Furthermore this initiative is also only being taken in 10 stores - so what of the blushes of the myriad of bashful fish fanciers in the other 750+ Sainsbury’s outlets? Is this an old fashioned bit of PR puffery? Will we see that after a trial period the ten stores get their pollacks back?
Has the media fallen for this hook, line and sinker? (OK that’s enough puns….Ed.)
