week 12, post 3, world food

With coffee ads being prevalent in this country, it is interesting to see how different companies approach their product for advertising. After researching this company I have found some interesting information, first being that the company started in Sweden and was later sold to Kraft foods. Gevalia coffee is sold in North America through internet sales, but is mainly sold in stores to Scandinavian customers. With so many coffee ads in Sweden, creativity and differentiation is at its highest with ads in this category. The advertisement pictured makes the brand seem foreign, which is an interesting platform to take during a hot political time in Sweden concerning immigrants. If I knew nothing about this history of this company, I might guess that it is from another part of the world given it's authentic looking design and packaging. This particular coffee seems to target younger customers with the open minds about worldwide products and a concern or interest for the world outside Scandinavia. This ad was spotted very close to Uppsala's own coffee roastery, Lindvall's. Lindvall's is the opposite of what Gevalia does:

Lindvall's features pictures of Uppsala on their packages, making it seem very 'hometown' to its consumers across Sweden. It can be clearly seen what drinking Lindvall's compared to drinking the new Gevalia worldly flavors could say about a person. The experience visiting each of the companies websites are vastly different as well. When visiting lindvalls.se, one is brought to a homepage with Swedish captions with the option of continuing in English. The products, in the picture above, are featured on the first page with their distinctly Swedish packaging. It is also notable that the company chose to have a '.se' domain rather than a '.com', which is what Gevalia did. Gevalia's website is in English and seems more for an international audience than the Lindvall's website was. It is interesting to compare these two drinks the way Americans compare Pepsi and Coke, relating them to political affiliations and beliefs. When googling 'coke vs. pepsi', this image was a result on just the second page:

It is interesting to see that the same things happen across international borders with competing product companies, and it shows that advertising is virtually the same no matter where one travels, it just comes through in different products to cater to different audiences.