Discount retailer Aldi Suisse and airline Swiss are coming up with similar marketing ideas. Now they are fighting over the brands ‘Saveurs Suisses’ and ‘Swiss Saveurs’.
Marketers sometimes come up with pretty similar ideas. When the Lufthansa Group, which includes Swiss – the premium Swiss airline – introduced its pay meal in economy class, it needed a positive term for it.
The marketing people came up with ‘Swiss Saveurs’ as the airline announced. But now German discounter Aldi is also using a similar name in Switzerland, as reported by the “CH-Media” newspapers.
Valais jams
That’s the name Aldi Suisse is using for its new private label ‘Saveurs Suisses.’ With this, the discounter wants to put its regional products, such as ravioli and gnocchi from Ticino, St. Galler Olmabratwurst, Bündner Nusstorte, Basler Läckerli, Saucisson au Gamay, Reblochon de Moudon or St-Etienne, Tartufi from Sedrun or Valais jams, in a special light.
The first goods went on sale on Thursday, October 20, 2022, according to a media release from Aldi Suisse. This was the starting signal for the Swiss retailer to further expand its regional range, the Germans rejoiced.
Sweet words
The Saveurs Suisses specialties would be produced regionally and appreciated throughout Switzerland. Many of these products are therefore offered not only in their region of origin, but throughout Switzerland, they beamed.
At German Lufthansa, their pay meal is called Onboard Delights, hoping to give an elegant touch. At the Austrian subsidiary, the marketing experts came up with Austrian Melangerie.
Now the discounter and the Swiss airline are at loggerheads. According to the articles, and the premium airline is considering legal action.
Swiss with personnel changes
But Aldi was very clever and had their brand registered in the Swiss trademark register at the beginning of the year. While the premium carrier Swiss seems to have slept on its branding.
Daniel Bärlocher, Swiss’ head of communications for more than eleven years, unexpectedly quit at the beginning of October.
So far, the concrete reasons are not known. Previously, two media spokespersons had already left the Swiss flagship airline in April and July after both short and very long periods with the company. So there is a lot of movement, for example, in airline communications.
Hardly any parallels
In any case, an Aldi media spokesman stressed to the newspapers of the “CH-Media” group that the retailer had checked the legal situation by experts before the launch. In addition, Aldi further explained that there were sufficient differences between the two brands. There was therefore ‘no likelihood of confusion’ among consumers, it said.
muula.ch cannot judge whether Aldi first saw the brand name at Swiss and found it to be attractive. Due to the lack of registration, Aldi Suisse then perhaps decided to register it? But the companies have to work that out among themselves.
Ultimately, for both companies it is just a nice way of giving a product line a nice-sounding local touch.
29.10.2022/kut./ena.
