The Nestlé logo, as far as I can tell, is a little drawn graphic image of a mother bird standing on the edge of a bird’s nest and I think they are suggesting that the mother bird is there to feed her two baby birds that are inside the nest. And the nest is built upon a tree branch that has apparently been sawed off of a tree while they weren’t paying attention. (That’s what it looks like, anyway.) But if this is supposed to be what’s going on here, is this really such a good idea? You see, Nestlé sells food products and baby formula and baby food and candy and so forth, and seeing as how that’s the case, do they really want to associate their company with birds? I mean, birds are all pretty and everything, but it’s just that birds feed their chicks by catching worms, eating them, and then regurgitating them back up into their children’s mouths. Yum, yummy! So while, as I said before, birds are all pretty and all, their feeding habits are a bit unpalatable to humans. But maybe the marketing people at Nestlé are counting on their customers being ignorant of bird behavior? Because if their customers know about how birds feed their chicks, they might start to think there’s some predigested wormy vomit in the ingredients somewhere, or else visualize that image when they see the company logo. (Naturally, I am only joking here.)
(Sorry, my college courses in animal behavior are showing, aren’t they? And I guess maybe I never got over that film I saw at Andover Summer Session about how Nestlé was marketing their baby formula to third-world countries where the mothers would mix it with unsanitary water to feed their babies because they were led to believe it was healthier than breast-feeding their children.* Eek. Although it is possible that the marketing people working for Nestlé had no idea that anyone would actually take the advertising claims seriously, since hardly anyone in America or Europe ever does.)
Here’s the Wikipedia page for Nestlé, with the logo at the right hand side of the page:
* And here’s a Wikipedia page about the Nestlé baby formula controversy:
Oh, and here’s a news story that popped up the very day I posted this which is somewhat related:
