On Dropping the Dead Lion: A Tale of Rebranding and the Secularisation of Contemporary Culture

Before (good) and After (bad)

 

 

I. Opening Remarks

 

The recent hoo-ha surrounding the decision by Lyle's to remove their iconic dead lion logo from its Golden Syrup in a rebranding effort that is intended to broaden its appeal amongst a younger generation of shoppers and avoid causing any possible offence, reminds us of two things: firstly, just how feeble-minded some of those working in marketing and brand promotion can be and, secondly, just how deeply disturbing is the Bible story upon which the original design was based.  

 

Let's discuss each of these points in turn ...

 

 

II. What Were Those Idiots in Marketing Thinking? 

 

Actually, thanks to press releases and statements made on social media, we have a very good idea of the thinking that shaped Brand Director James Whitley's decision to abandon 140 years of history and replace the world's oldest food logo [1] with a heavily stylised but soulless image which reminds one of Disney's Lion King [2] rather than Samson's heroic exploits in the Book of Judges. 

 

This obsession with refreshing the legacy and moving with the times in order to remain relevant to a modern audience has resulted in a number of disastrous decisions over the years; just ask the rebranding geniuses at Tropicana, for example [3]. 

 

And so, whilst I'm not opposed to change and happily acknowledge that, when done well, rebranding can help bring in new customers and dramatically increase sales, the fact remains that it involves more than shitting on your own past and designing a friendlier logo. You have to produce a strong new narrative in place of the old one and simply telling people that your product meets their current needs and remains an affordabe treat doesn't really cut it.     

 

As Mr Whitley and his team at Lyle's have now discovered, when attempting to rebrand a long-established and much-loved product you run the risk of losing more than you gain. And when, as in this case, rebranding seems to be driven by a certain woke sensibility, it can quickly lead to a PR disaster.

   

III. What Were Those Old Testament Lunatics Thinking?

 

The Scottish food manufacturer Abram Lyle (1820-1891) was, first and foremost, a deeply religious man. An elder of the Presbyterian Church, he was also a strict teetotaller and would proudly tell people that he'd sooner have a son of his carried home dead than drunk.

 

So it's perhaps not surprising that he would choose to give reference to an Old Testament narrative on his tins of Golden Syrup ... 

 

The story he chose - in which the superhumanly strong Samson kills a young lion with his bare hands - is, I have to admit, not one I was very familiar with until news broke of the rebranding exercise discussed above. 

 

But now I'm a lttle obsessed with the story, in all its horror ...

 

Returning to the scene of this lion-killing some time later, Samson discovers that a swarm of bees have built a hive in the animal's carcass [4]. Having tasted the honey made by the bees, Samson decides to take some home as a gift for his parents (although he doesn't reveal to them the origin of the honey).  

 

Shortly after, Samson decides (at God's bidding, but against his parents wishes) to marry a Philistine woman and, at the wedding feast, he challenges a large group of guests on the bride's side to work out what it is that he refers to in the following riddle: 

 

Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness [5].  

 

Obviously, it's impossible for them to guess as the riddle is based upon Samson's own experience. However, after threatening her with extreme violence, they force his new bride to obtain the answer for them (which she does by begging her husband to be let in on the secret). 

 

The guests then reveal to Samson they know the answer and, having lost the wager made, Samson is obliged to provide them all with new clothes. 

 

But, being a sore loser and a schizophrenic prone to auditory hallucinations that he believes to be the voice of Yahweh, rather than simply donate items from his own wardrobe or pay for some new garments, Samson murders thirty Philistines, strips the corpses, and hands the clothes over to those who solved his riddle.

 

Angered by his wife's betrayal (as he sees it), Samson decides to return to his own family and hand the woman over to his best man to do with as he will. 

 

It is, I trust readers will agree, a shocking tale; one involving cruelty, divine madness, deceit, extortion under threat of violence, racism, and mass murder. 

 

I know these things are not uncommon in the Bible, but, even so, they're probably not topics you want to be reminded of when pouring syrup on your pancakes in the morning, which makes me think that perhaps James Whitely and his rebranding team at Lyle's were justified after all in dropping the dead lion logo and that the secularisation of contemporary culture is a good thing (even if it results in a more boring, disenchanted world).       

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] Golden Syrup's green tin featuring a dead lion surrounded by a swarm of bees, has - until now - remained pretty much the same since the product first launched in the early 1880s and holds the Guinness World Record for the world's oldest unchanged brand packaging. 

 

[2] The rebrand will take place across the full product range, excluding the classic Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin, which will retain its original identity and logo. This is called hedging your bets (and it's probably not a bad idea).  

 

[3] Tropicana is an American fruit juice company. Founded in 1947, it soon became an internationally recognisable brand. In 2009, however, the powers-that-be at Tropicana decided to radically simplify the design of their cartons sold in the US. Unfortunately, this move was not well received and after two months of negative consumer reaction - and a 20% drop in sales - they switched back to the original design of an orange skewered by a drinking straw.

 

[4] Samson's discovery of a beehive in the lion's dead body obviously lacks natural realism; bees would normally avoid rotting flesh. However, it's been suggested by those looking to get around this fact that the word usually translated as carcass might more accurately be read as skeleton. 

      Unfortunately, I'm not sure that really helps matters and I think it's probably wisest to view this incident as just one more miraculous occurrence in the Bible - albeit one informed perhaps by the ancient belief in spontaneous generation, i.e., the emergence of living creatures from nonliving matter.

 

[5] Judges 14:14 - click here to read this chapter in full (KJV). This astonishing line has been open to multiple interpretations. For me, it sounds like something Zarathustra might have said and one is reminded of Nietzsche's view that virtue is born of strength.   

 

 

Moloch

18thC German depiction of Moloch

During a memorial Mass for the murdered French priest, 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel, the Archbishop of Paris accused the young men responsible of crying Allahu Akbar in order to disguise the fact that they actually worship at the altar of Moloch - the ancient pagan deity who gloried in human sacrifice.

Essentially an Old Testament take on the official line that acts of Islamic terrorism have nothing to do with Islam, Cardinal Vingt-Trois told the faithful not to be fooled by these self-proclaimed jihadists, whilst warning the latter that those who wish to serve and promulgate a god of death - one who demands bloodshed and promises paradise to those who slay the innocent - cannot expect all of humanity to surrender to their madness. In the face of evil, he concluded, Christians must do what they've always done; spread the Gospel of Jesus and find their strength, their courage, and their salvation in Almighty God, the God of Love.

   

Of course, this is as mendacious as everything else that comes out of the mouth of a religiously motivated speaker. For acts of Islamic terrorism have everything to do with Islam and, more widely, with Abrahamic monotheism in general; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are apocalyptic spiritual traditions with a common origin and they share many beliefs, traditions, and moral teachings.

And so, just as there is very little difference between Yahweh and Allah - both are judgemental and jealous gods who demand submission and sacrifice from their followers - there is genuine theological kinship and continuity between the God of Love worshipped by the Archbishop of Paris and the Canaanite idol known as Moloch.

Indeed, reviving a medieval rabbinical tradition, both Georg Friedrich Daumer and Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany published influential works in 1841 arguing that Moloch and Yahweh were actually one and the same figure and that the cult of the latter developed out of that of the former. 

It's probably best, therefore, that Cardinal Vingt-Trois doesn't say anything else along this line in future; 'cos he's on a very slippery slope. Modern followers of the major religions are essentially no different from ancient pagans with their savage superstitions. Muslims and Christians, for example, are often just as willing to martyr themselves for their gods (and to kill others) without ever asking - or even caring - whether their gods are worthy of such fanatic devotion.

Bertrand Russell - not a philosopher I would normally turn to for support - sums this up nicely in the following paragraph:

"Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty and torture, of degradation and human sacrifice, endured in the hope of placating the jealous gods ... The religion of Moloch - as such creeds may be generically called - is in essence the cringing submission of the slave, who dare not, even in his heart, allow the thought that his master deserves no adulation. Since the independence of ideals is not yet acknowledged, Power may be freely worshipped, and receive an unlimited respect, despite its wanton infliction of pain."

- Bertrand Russell, 'A Free Man's Worship' (1903)