Pepsico on Tuesday unveiled a new name and logo for Aunt Jemima, the pancake mix and syrup brand that for decades featured a caricature of a Black woman on the packaging, after a surge of criticism amid the national reckoning over racism that followed the death of George Floyd last year.
The brand will be called the Pearl Milling Company, named for the original Missouri business that in 1889 introduced an instant pancake mix under the Aunt Jemima name.
While the recipes will remain unchanged and the products will be packaged in the familiar red boxes, the name and image of the “Aunt Jemima” character will no longer be used.
Soon after Quaker Oats said it would rebrand Aunt Jemima in June, other companies pledged to reexamine or scrap questionable branding and packaging, including Eskimo Pie, Mrs. Butterworth’s, Land O’Lakes, Uncle Ben’s, Cream of Wheat, Colgate, Nestlé, and Dixie Beer.
The Pearl Milling Company was the late-19th-century business that created the original ready-made pancake mix, according to PepsiCo. It was founded in 1888 by Chris L. Rutt.
Rutt named the original company after “Old Aunt Jemima,” an 1875 song from a minstrel show that featured performers in black face who wore aprons and bandana headbands.
The new Pearl Milling Company brand logo replaces the Aunt Jemima image with what appears to be a 19th-century watermill, where flour was ground at the time. The new logo’s red, white and yellow color scheme matches the colors that were used on Aunt Jemima’s packaging.
Did Pepsico go far enough to re-image an old brand? Will this new image hurt or help sales?
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i feel like this new rebranding will take some time for us to get used to but we will eventually get over the nostalgia of seeing aunt jemima in the stores. I think it will hurt the brand a little bit from this rebranding but nothing too harmful that will make the company go out of business.
I am so sad that they are replace the old brand. Everyone loved it and is very use to it as well. Replacing the new one will indeed take time but might make sales decrease.
Did Pepsico go far enough to re-image an old brand? Will this new image hurt or help sales?
I think Pepsico went far enough to re-image their old brand since they completely removed Aunt Jemima from the boxes to eliminate the racial stereotype. I believe they mainly didn’t change the color of the box to keep sales up since Aunt Jemima has been around for centuries. As long as their recipes don’t change, I don’t think this new image will effect sales much.
In my opinion Pepsico went far enough to remove the racial image. But, I do think they could have re-imaged it better so it attracts people so they would want to buy it. I think that this new image will hurt the sales at first but, when people get more accustom to it the sales will sart to rise up once again.
I think in my opinion, this new brand will take a little bit to get normal in this society since people are used to the aunt jenima label already.
I think them changing the image will hurt more then help because for those who liked the old image and dislike this new image will not make them want to choose the syrup even more it might do the opposite depending on how dissatisfied they are with it.
The new image and name will take a bit to get used to. Overall, I think the change will hurt the business a little because it just looks like an off-brand syrup now. Consumers were familiar with the happy face of Aunt Jemima, and they will likely be confused with the new name.
I Completely agree it will take some getting used to. And you’re right looking at it now it does kinda look off-brand.
I feel They didn’t go far Enough with the re- brand if They really wanted to rebrand changing the entire scheme would have to be in affect. Everything is being rebranded now and days if change is to come cutting ties with the past and looking to rebrand for something culturally acceptable would be a lot better.
I feel like they should’ve gone above and beyond if there were going to change it. Even though the original had a lot of racist undertones and a lot of bad issues with the image itself in general at least it was memorable. I don’t shop for syrup but if I did see this new one in the market I wouldn’t even recognize it. It’s just generic. I think it was good that they changed it but because of the new design sales of the product will go down I assume.
I think it’s really unnecessary for them to change the logo and the brand like if you don’t want history to repeat itself then you just don’t let it overall they shouldn’t have changed it in my opinion I don’t think it will help anything am I opinion it’s more hurtful than helpful.
I think that this new rebrand will cause no effect to the people because at the end of the day is the recipe is still the same people will still buy the product. Yeah removing the old image to me seems like a good idea because of the racial stereotype but I don’t think that sales will go down because it is still the same product.
They definitely went far when they changed the logo. I almost didn’t recognize it I am also very shocked. it’s hard to say how people will react. they will definitely be very stunned at first and will take some getting used to. Most probably won’t like it at first but eventually, with time get used to it.