Pork's Double Personality Disorder

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Enter Chicken, a lean, healthymeat. Known for its role in calorie-conscious dishes such as Caesar salad.

Enter Beef, a fatty, flavorfulmeat—everything Chicken is not. Known for its succulence in cuts such astenderloin and New York Strip. 

Enter Pork [no descriptionavailable].

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Sincethe late 1980s, pork has gone through a number of transformations, shiftingback and forth between different roles. One minute it resembles beef, the next apoor imitation of chicken. As a result, consumers don’t know what to make of it.

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Toa large extent, pork’s character flip-flops because of its molecular structure.Due to its myoglobin levels (the oxygen-carrying protein that gives meat itsred color) being lower than beef but higher than chicken, there is someconfusion about whether pork is a white meat, like chicken and turkey, or a redmeat, like beef. To some, including the United States National Pork Board andthose in the culinary world, it is the former, while to others, like theAmerican Institute for Cancer Research and just about everyone in the healthand nutrition sciences, it is the latter.

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Pork,in other words, is stuck in limbo between chicken and beef, lean/healthy andfatty/flavourful, which has proven tricky for the pork industry in terms ofmarketing.

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Oneword the National Pork Board likes to use is “versatile.” Not only is porkversatile in the kitchen, but also it’s versatile in marketing. This recentproposal by the USDA that would focus on a new grading system promises to shakeup the way we view pork. But are these constant identity changes good or badfor pork’s public image? And what do they say about consumers?

Before 'The Other White Meat'

Inthe late 19th century, pork was a character of substance—it had a strong andwell-understood identity. Before the advent of refrigeration, pork was themost-consumed meat in America because it could be easily preserved throughprocessing. As a result, it was most commonly associated with salty products,like ham and bacon, which led to its reputation as being fatty and unhealthy.

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“Mostconsumers think of pork only as chops and as a blue-collar kind of food,” saida New York Times report from the late1980s. “Unlike veal, [pork] is unsuited for featuring at dinner parties orordering at a restaurant.”

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Yetwhen refrigeration entered the scene in the mid-20th century, beef replacedpork as the most-consumed meat in America. Pork’s infamy continued in thelatter half of the century as consumers became more conscious of the fatcontent of their food.

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However,just before the dawn of the 1990s, the National Pork Board reintroduced pork,with a brand new look, to the public, launching what would become one of themost popular ad campaigns in modern marketing: “Pork. The Other White Meat”

'TheOther White Meat'

Createdby the advertising agency Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhart, the goal of thecampaign was straightforward.

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“[Theobjective] was to increase consumer demand for pork and to dispel pork’sreputation as a fatty protein,” says pork.org. “The Other White Meat campaignwas developed to position pork as a good tasting, versatile and nutritious meatthat is easy to prepare and appropriate for any meal.”

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TheOther White Meat was a campaign urgently needed by those in the pork industry.At the time, a battle for center stage was taking place, with chicken quicklyprevailing as the star of the meat world. By 1996, it had overtaken pork as thesecond-most-consumed meat in America, and by 2012 it had stolen the spotlightall together by dethroning beef. By aligning pork with lean white meats, therebyriding the coattails of chicken, the National Pork Board attempted to appeal tothe consumer trend of health-conscious eating, and to reclaim its ground overits feathered antagonist.

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TheOther White Meat campaign was a smash hit. In less than five years, salesincreased by 20%, and from 1987 to 1994, pork consumption per person went froma little over 45 pounds a year to 49 pounds. More than that, the campaignhelped repair pork’s image by convincing a large amount of consumers that itwas no longer unhealthy. In fact, pork was so convincing in its role as theother white meat that people were willing to overlook overwhelming evidence tothe contrary, which speaks either to the power of marketing or the gullibilityof consumers—or, more likely, both.

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Beginningin the mid-2000s, the National Pork Board sought to further revamp pork’simage, starting with the new slogan “Don’t be blah.”

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Theobjective of the slogan, according to ProgressiveGrocer, was to “increase pork sales by positioning pork as an excitingsolution to the everyday meal rut that today’s cook falls into.”

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“Don’tbe blah” was soon followed by “Be inspired.” In the spirit of the original TheOther White Meat campaign, the goal of these identity tweaks, aside fromincreasing sales, was to bring new awareness to pork after the effects of thelate-20th century rebranding had worn off.

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Butthese slogans are minor role changes compared to what the USDA has plannednext.

Post 'The Other White Meat'

Themost recent proposed change to pork’s identity, focusing on flavour instead ofleanness, would mean a complete role reversal.

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“Ifadopted,” The Western Producer says,“the grading system would once again play up pork as a red meat and drop thewhite meat comparison.”

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Aftercompeting with chicken for roughly three decades, with the new grading system,pork’s biggest competitor once again would be beef. Chicken, it seems, provedtoo tough an adversary. In its attempt to impersonate chicken, pork ended up lookinglike a B-grade actor compared to the real white meat.

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Butwhether or not these changes will help solidify pork’s character is yet to beseen. What’s also unclear is whether this is yet another marketing campaign bythe pork industry, another effort to change pork’s image in order to attractnew consumers. And will consumers fall for it this time?

Pork’s Many Transformations: A Problem

Dependingon how you look at it, pork’s many transformations can be seen as both asuccess and a failure. In terms of brand awareness and sales, they were indeedsuccessful, particularly the original The Other White Meat campaign, which sawpork sales in the United States rise for more than a decade. Sales alsoincreased after the introduction of “Don’t be blah” and “Be inspired.” Moreimportantly, the various marketing campaigns were effective in raisingawareness and changing public perception of pork (several times).

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Butthe returns didn’t last long. While sales spiked after each new slogan and adcampaign, in the long run pork consumption has remained relatively stagnant,while chicken has cemented its status as star of the meat world in the US. Thesame is true in Canada, where pork consumption has declined by more than 30 per cent since 1999, while in the same time chicken consumption has risen 11 per cent.

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Ontop of price increases and economic factors, The Globe and Mail cites “aging diners forgoing red meat for healthreasons” as the cause of the decline of pork and beef consumption in Canada,which suggests that The Other White Meat wasn’t entirely effective inconvincing people that pork is healthy—or, at the very least, it suggests thatthe effects of the campaign have worn off.

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Theserebrandings, in other words, have amounted to nothing more than temporaryfacelifts, which have only served to obfuscate pork’s public image. Is it awhite meat or a red meat? Is it lean and healthy, or fatty and flavourful? Basedon the various ad campaigns over the years, it’s all of the above. Pork is playingtoo many roles at once, and as a result consumers don’t know what to make ofit. Rather than establish a concrete, distinct identity for pork, the USDA’smany marketing campaigns since 1987 have tried to align it with chicken andbeef (often at the same time). The problem with this is that it will always bethe other white meat or the other red meat—that is, it will alwaysbe the other meat, second to chicken and beef.