Ads & Ends
Nanette Franco-Diyco
WE ARE NOT talking about politics here. This column is devoted to perfectly good eggs.
I distinctly remember brown eggs as a staple for breakfast in my mother’s house. This was no big deal because, to my recollection, all available eggs then were brown. During that time, too, chickens were bought from the wet market literally alive and kicking. Then, the cook would routinely chop off their heads, and then remove their feathers after a fast boil. Nothing frozen then.
Segue to today.
I caught this TV commercial during the election period. I admit, it got my attention because of the creative execution of the brown eggs’ visuals. I actually thought we were being taught how to fill up our ballot forms! Relevance at its best!
It was a marvelously simple commercial that made me chuckle at the very end because of the way it drew my attention. What would make you think the commercial was selling eggs? Dig the line “Freedom to Choose”! Ad agency Publicis Jimenez Basic very cleverly showed frame after frame, a brown pencil shading one of four oblongs that turned out to be white eggs and one brown egg.
This led me to interview San Miguel Foods’ Anne Camille Sabale, who educated me about Magnolia’s brown eggs. And from thereon, I decided to wear my consumerist hat.
The brown eggs business is in fact San Miguel Foods’ initial foray into the eggs business. It was a deliberate decision to produce and market brown eggs to offer a different value proposition versus the commercially produced white table eggs that are popular in the Philippines.
I learned that the Philippines is one of the few countries that use white eggs — “all other countries have brown eggs as their staple egg type. The strategy is to offer consumers something different by offering them an alternative… to white eggs.”
Ms. Sabale taught me that the color of the egg depends on the color of the layer hen — if the layer hens are brown, then the eggs they produce are also brown.
Magnolia brown eggs come from cage-free hens. “Our layer hens are kept indoors in large barns separated into pens, rather than small battery cages, which the commercial farms use,” Ms. Sabale said.
The hens have much more room to move around and are able to carry out their natural activities such as spreading their wings, scratching for food, and even socializing with other hens. “This production process is deemed more humane and animal-friendly, lessening the possibility of chickens experiencing stress, thus enabling them to produce high quality brown eggs.”
I rate these as important consumer learnings from Ms. Sabale: Magnolia brown eggs come from “naturally nested” layer hens imported from Australia and are raised the old-fashioned way in a barn type environment. Their eggs are then manually and carefully picked up so the chickens will not experience any stress.
They are free from antibiotics — no chemicals, hormones, steroids, or antibiotics have been administered to the hens during their growing process.
Magnolia brown eggs are rich in flavor — akin to native eggs as a result of feed formulation, which is high in corn content. This yields a bright yellow-orange yolk.
Publicis Jimenez Basic’s commercial smacked of San Miguel Poultry’s leadership stance, confidently communicating a consumer’s freedom to choose the better egg: Magnolia brown eggs, of course. Take a bow, PJB and San Miguel Poultry.
Nanette Franco-Diyco ended her 15th year advertising career as Vice-President of JWT, segueing into the world of academe, currently teaching communications at the Ateneo de Manila University. nanettediyco131@gmail.com
