PARIS — The labels on Swiss mini-cream containers tend toward the pastoral and cuddly, with pleasant images of Alpine landscapes and locomotives, or dogs and cats. So it was something of a shock to one consumer at a Swiss train station to find the face of Hitler staring back at him when he reached to lighten his morning coffee. Migros, a Swiss retail giant, said it did not know exactly how the image came to be on the label. But it offered its apologies Wednesday for the “unforgivable incident” and withdrew about 2,000 containers, some of which also featured the face of Mussolini, from about 100 cafes in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Tristan Cerf, a spokesman for Migros, said by telephone from Lausanne on Wednesday that the company had been horrified by the failure of its internal controls to detect the images on its cream containers. He said the problem had come to Migros’s attention after a customer drinking coffee at the Baden train station was startled by the discovery and sent a photo of the label to the newspaper 20 Minutes.
Imagine how embarrassed the folks at Migros are going to be when they find out about the Mein Kampf biscuits and the Theresienstadt tea….
The idea that a company could somehow release a product bearing the face and name of Adolf Hitler…and then claim to be shocked…SHOCKED!!…that something like that could happen defies rational understanding. Oh, and it gets better. In addition to Hitler creamer, Migros doubled down by doing the same thing with Benito Mussolini. Call me cynical, but it sounds like someone saw an opportunity to create some instant collectibles and with it make some money. That sort of thing may seem like a prototypical American marketing technique- and it is- but controversy sells. The fact that I’m writing about this is an indication that this was a textbook example of the effectiveness of viral marketing. Generate some controversy, make bank, and apologize…after you’ve tallied your profits.
Yes, it may have been an “unforgivable incident,” and Migros may have been “horrified,” but I suspect they were laughing and taking their mea culpas all the way to the bank.
