Marketing food brands: End of innocence?

It's all about money and you won't be getting any more of mine," wrote the blogger on the Innocent website. When it emerged a few weeks ago that McDonald's would be selling Innocent smoothies in its Happy Meals for children, many Innocent drinkers reacted as if the company had just sold its business to the US corporation. People assumed that McDonald's was after an Innocent halo effect. No one imagined that association with McDonald's would add any lustre to the Innocent brand – only volume of sales.

That seemed to work Innocent fans into a state of animation that ranged from disbelief to disgust to anger. If membership cards existed for Innocent they would have been torn up or burnt. The company's blog could hardly contain the torrent of words.

By the end of the first day, Richard Reed – one of the three founders of Innocent – had to go on the blog to put out a conciliatory statement. After all, this was a company that had grown at an astonishing rate because its customers felt that they were part of a close, like-minded family. The statement went along the lines of "surely it's better for children to get the chance to drink healthy fruit smoothies than the kind of stuff that is more usually available from McDonald's."

For many of the bloggers this was a red rag rather than a reasoned argument. "It's not about kids, it's about ethics," thundered the ironically named Mac. Some would never be reconciled to 'McDollar' – they shouldn't be touched with a banana.

I spoke to Richard Reed soon after the storm broke and he was battered but unrepentant. "Obviously, we expected to get a kicking from some of our drinkers for going into McDonald's, but when a company slated for selling unhealthy food asks to start selling healthy food, it felt more irresponsible to say 'no' than 'yes'. And our strategy has always been to do what we think is right, not what we think sounds right. And we weren't going to change from that philosophy now, even though we knew we would get some flak."

Despite outward appearances, Innocent Drinks is not a hippy commune. An insider described the founders to me when I was researching a book on the company as "hippies with calculators". They know they're in business to make money, and without profits they'll never be able to do the good things they want to do. But McDonald's is a no-go area for many people, even if organisations such as Greenpeace are finding ways to work with them without abandoning ethics.

Aware of the sensitivity, Innocent had got all its staff together twice to discuss the decision (but it was a decision that had already been taken rather than one that was to be debated). Innocent has grown from the three founders, who famously thought up the idea for the company after running a smoothie stall at a music festival in a London park, to a staff of 200 and a turnover of £100m. And all in the space of eight years. Irrespective of any reservations among the staff, the founders pressed on with building their relationship with McDonald's, believing that they had made their decision for the right reasons.

Jamie Mitchell, Innocent's UK managing director, claims that the storm of protest has somehow been healthy for the company. "The blog has been extraordinary – not just the scale of it, but the quality of the debate," he says.

As part of its damage-limitation strategy, Innocent's bosses started contacting some of the more strident complainants. "We surprised 30 or more of them by ringing them up for a conversation – suddenly an Innocent founder was on the line. We might not have convinced them, but at least we've reached a point where we know we respect each other's position," says Mitchell.

He admits Innocent's naivety in not realising how negative the reaction would be. Innocent had taken pre-emptive action by sounding out Greenpeace and the Rainforest Alliance, both of whom were working with McDonald's to combat rainforest destruction. The decision came down to ethics and health, and on both counts Innocent decided that the best policy was to go ahead with the trial.

"How could we stand aside if McDonald's want to sell healthier food to children?" asks Mitchell. "Our objective is to get kids to have more fruit. We couldn't just stand outside being angry about it. We want our drinks to reach kids wherever they are – that means schools and family restaurants. So we're aiming for both of those."

Innocent is the latest company caught in this particular dilemma. Pret A Manger has sold a third of its business to McDonald's; Green & Black's was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes; The Body Shop by L'Oréal. Is it impossible for an "anti-corporate" brand to resist the commercial lure of the big corporation? Even though the degree of "sell-out" is less in Innocent's case (merely distributing one product for sale in a regional pilot scheme), the sense of betrayal has been just as great.

The reason lies in Innocent's success to date. It has become a brand that people love with a passion, as they buy into its quirky humour, environmental concerns and ethical behaviour towards the developing world. Now, because of the McDonald's link, some former fans say they'll stop buying the drinks made of "fruit and nothing but fruit", sold in recyclable bottles with labels that make you laugh. What's the alternative, you might ask?

The reality is that Innocent's only serious competitor, in a category they have almost created, is PJs – itself a small, independent start-up until it was acquired by PepsiCo. For the last three years, David against Goliath, Innocent has continued to dominate the PepsiCo product, winning a 65% market share. By comparison, PJs is less packed with pure fruit and is a brand lacking in personality.

Time will tell. The Innocent brand is strong. Inside the company they are evangelists for what they do. Outside the company, customers have been evangelists, too. Perhaps, for the first time, a little gap has appeared between the inside and the outside world.

One of Innocent's answers is to counter the perception of becoming too big and corporate. "We want to grow big but stay small," claims Mitchell. The immensely successful Fruitstock music festival has been cancelled this year, even though it previously attracted crowds of more than 100,000 people (and growing). This year Innocent is planning its own version of a village fete instead.

John Simmons is the author of 'Great Brand Stories: Innocent: Building a Brand from Nothing but Fruit', published by Cyan Books, £8.99