Artisan: Can it also be Corporate?
I heard a radio ad today for a snack cracker. The ad incorporated several things to pique the interest of the potential customer:
A call to be healthy with inclusion of the concept of "snack packs."
An additional emphasis on both health and aspirational lifestyle by the use of a celebrity spokesperson (a chef who specializes in healthy foods who has appeared both on Celebrity Apprentice: Martha Stewart who is now on the show Real Housewives of NYC) to recommend the product as a good choice to the potential buyer.
Lastly, the word "artisan" to describe the product (which includes what was defined as "artisan" cheese).
The first two parts were vaguely amusing to me but the last part where the word "artisan" was summoned in argument to buy really spiked my interest.
"Artisan". Can the word be legitimately used when the product being touted is a corporate one, being produced by the gazillions of pounds to fill every supermarket shelf in the US and beyond?
If it can be legitimately used in this case, how and why?
Or could this be a case of PT Barnum's famous saying merely being true one more time?
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9 Comments:
Interesting post. Artisan certainly cannot be used in my nearby chain grocery store to describe their bread, though they do. The dough is the same for every variation of bread they bake (do they make the dough there, or get it "ready to bake" off a truck? I don't want to ask). They have all these Old World names, the most offensive of which is Pugliese. Hell, I lived in Puglia and never saw bread like that. Grr.
Sorry for the rant. I'm sensitive about bread, its ingredients and the origins of it in all its mighty glory, and seeing it packaged for marketing purposes in an antiseptic, 24/7 chain store environment just slays me. Especially when this town has two supremely authentic German bakeries that remain "small businesses" because of the big chain's "artisan bread."
It's minimum-wage artisanship, a charade, really.
TikiPundit at 10:13AM on 04/09/08
Smart businesses know what the fads are and will cater their catch phrases toward that. I classify the use of "artisan" (in relation to food) with "gourmet" and "authentic." There are fairly loose industry definitions of what "artisan" should be; however, the government doesn't have control over it like "organic," so companies can, and will, use it rather freely to pique the interest of consumers. I suppose if enough people file complaints, the government may step in like they did with "organic" and quantify "artisan," for better or worse.
Cassaendra at 12:01PM on 04/09/08
Ha, ha! Cassaendra, you just reminded me of something someone recently posted to the Post Secret site!
Clickey
Karen Resta at 12:12PM on 04/09/08
Well, first, they are using the term incorrectly. According to my dictionary, artisan is a noun referring to "a person who is skilled in an applied art; a craftperson." Artisanal is the adjective form, as in artisanal cheese.
Grammatical nitpicking aside, I suppose it is possible that a mass produced cracker could have as an ingredient an artisanal cheese. A manufacturer could purchase cheeses from many small cheese-makers. But I cannot imagine that that would be very cost effective. So I suspect that Cassandra is correct .. this is another instance of marketing people co-opting a word that actually means hand-made by skilled craftspeople but is not regulated and open to abuse or misuse.
kjgibson at 2:44PM on 04/09/08
@ Karen -
1. I love the Post Secret site.
2. Since artisan is defined by "Merriam Webster" as "one that produces something (as cheese or wine) in limited quantities often using traditional methods"...I highly doubt it can be considered corporate. They can say Artisan style, but if its a corporation, it's not limited quantities!
Great post!
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 3:48PM on 04/09/08
Yeah - I was having this fantasy of the Keebler Elves running around like mad collecting tons of goat cheese from little rainbow-colored goats.
Karen Resta at 4:48PM on 04/10/08
Maybe I should have titled this topic "Artisan food fantasy meets corporate sex in the boardroom - which celebrity chef would you put on the table?"
Might have had a little more response action if I had. Heh Heh.
Karen Resta at 4:28PM on 04/11/08
I think that big companies are using this word to make you think keebler elves and goats (ha) but of course like every tiny idea that catches on it is over used and over exposed. It is up to us the consumer to decide what is what by what we see.
http://organicandnaturalmom.blogspot.com/
love2cook at 7:16PM on 04/12/08
As an avocational breadbaker, I'm offended each time I see the display of "artisanal" breads in our local supermarket - frankly, I have enough respect for the term that I would never call myself an artisan baker, although I would say that I attempt to bake "artisan" type breads.
But I have a way we can register our annoyance of the supermarket's corporate license - our local perpatrator market uses those silly cards that you must have in order to receive their "specials" (not the artisan stuff, of course), I think I'll call and add "Doctor" to my name on the card - that way, when the checkout clerk says, "Thank you Dr. Smith", I can say, "Well, I'm not really a Doctor, but as long as you guys can call your bread, "artisan", I'll call myself Doctor."
Management WILL hear about it!
drfugawe at 9:22AM on 04/13/08