The Museums of Odense, which is a conglomerate of seven different Odense based museums, are ready to strike a deal with Danish cookie giant on branding by using H.C. Andersen. The museum is the first in Denmark to work with private companies.
As the first in Denmark, the Museums of Odense have during a ten year trial period been allowed to strike deals with privately owned companies in marketing. The Museums of Odense have already entered into deals with companies like Ecco and Lego.
Now, a deal is underway with Kjeldsen cookies, which sells sweets for more than half a billion DKK every year on the Chinese market.
“We want to see if we can somehow get H.C. Andersen branded in connection with Kjeldsen cookies. He is the most Danish brand we have in China,” said Torben Grøngaard Jeppesen, who is the Director at the Museums of Odense.
The challenges of the cookie company is to signal true “Danishness” in a market where they compete with companies that try to sell their products by boasting of being made in Denmark even though many of them are not. An example is a Malaysian company that sells cookies labeled “The Kingdom of Denmark” and with the Danish flag.
”Maybe I have to sign a piece of paper in the package that says that I am the Director of the House of H.C. Andersen in Odense and that I confirm that this product is real,” said Torben Grøngaard Jeppesen, who says that this could really be part of the deal.
The museums are not only a part of the deals to market the companies. H.C. Andersn on Lego, shoes and cookies is supposed to be an eye-opener to Denmark as the next holiday destination.
”We have the House of H.C. Andersen and we have been waiting for the time when Asians really start to travel because Andersen is massively popular in both China and Japan. This is advertisement, marketing and hopefully tourists,” said Torben Grøngaard Jeppesen.
The deal between Kjeldsen cookies and the Museums of Odense is not yet completely ready, but there is a wish from both sides of working together.
Read the full article and see the tv clip at tv2fyn.dk
