„Eat Hungarian paprika!” Retro paprikamarketing

Paprikamarketing? Yes! And we will explain how 🙂 We all know that marketing is important in pretty much every area of today’s life. Most certainly in commercial services such as hospitality. Of course, we too are confronted with their magical effects.

In our PaprikaMolnár Mill & Museum we are proud to have obtained an impressive collection of paprika tins, mostly produced in the 1930s and ’40s. The Hungarian Museum of Commerce and Hospitality has also presented a similar item in their digital database. So for this blogpost on marketing we decided to examine those tins on their marketing message. How did they do marketing in those days?

Paprika tins and paprikamarketing             

Let’s take a closer look our tin collection! We can clearly detect the different names appearing on the tins, in fact the emphasis on the name of the manufacturer or distributor can never be dominant enough. For example, we can immediately recognize the Szeredai paprika, but also clearly see the Csonka grind and the Szécsi product.

In those days they already understood that „good wine needs a label”, so they used the facing of the tin to motivate the buyer to buy more.

For example, the tin shown above proudly tells us that Szécsi sweet Szeged paprika is the best, so we would know where the paprika was from. The image uses relatively few drawings, with just a few paprika fruits in the background.   

The tin from Gergely Csonka is a little more informative. On the top we can read that the spice is world famous, and then that it is grown in Szeged, and also that it is legally protected. Gergely Csonka, written with impressive letters, appears to be a major producer of paprika. The composition is crowned by a girl in folklore dress standing in the middle of a paparika field seeming very pleased to have a bunch of Gergely Csonka paprikas in her hand. Seeing this, we can’t wait to buy. Right?

Hungarian paprika – state controlled! What more do you need?

However, we consider the tin below to be the peak of paprika marketing. With only minimal design dominated by a blue base colour and a large red paprika. On one side, they assure us of the state-controlled nature of the product, and on the other side of the tin they appeal to national emotions: „Eat Hungarian paprika!” Behind the inscription it shows two typical Hungarian paprika dishes, probably a fish soup and a beef stew.

The call for patriotism and the protection of local values could not be more relevant today. Is this something we would be happy to convey nowadays as well? It is definitely interesting to see that so many decades ago they used similar catchy references that we as producers and distributors are using today.

PS: Eat Hungarian paprika! 😉 

In fact, being inspired by those old tins recently we too have designed our own paprika tin. An admirable gift box of course filled with fresh paprika ready for tasting! 

Of course, we are happy to welcome visitors (and potential buyers) to personally come see our collection with their own eyes.

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