Do You Dip Your Fries in Your Frosty?

During a conversation about junk food and food cravings… and weird things that we eat, someone reminded me the other day about something I hadn’t thought about in a loooooonnnngggg time—dipping french fries into your Frosty (or other frozen dairy product if you’re not eating at Wendy’s).

Now, this blog has been pathologically silent for a while (too long), so I felt curiously inspired to dip my toe back into the blog pool with a reference to dip my fries into a Frosty.

After spending a laborious 45 seconds researching this idiosyncrasy of fast food pop culture, I realized that this topic has been blogged to a brain-freeze headache already.

That’s okay… I still needed “something” to catalyze me out of my digital inertia.

Do you dip?

McDonald’s Packaging Promotes Better Health…If Used Properly

Now here’s the most interesting tid-bit I’ve read in a long time. A research report from The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine has concluded that kids think food wrapped in McDonald’s packaging tastes better than the identical food NOT packaged in McDonald’s wraps.

BrandWeek wrote an article last week about how kids react to familiar brands and they prefer food presented in a McDonald’s wrapper…no matter what the food is.

According to the report, three to five year olds strongly preferred food presented in the familiar fast-food packaging. Diane Levin, a childhood development specialist who campaigns against advertising to kids, told the AP “You see a McDonald’s label and kids start salivating.”

Okay, now that much I can buy easily. In fact, it’s more or less what most of us already knew… but what I didn’t do was evolve my thinking beyond generalizing that a McDonald’s hamburger is what was making the kids… salivate. The real gem of insight is that kids will be interested in anything wrapped up by Ronald’s army of teenage employees.

But then I thought about it some more… and I recalled the first time I saw Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me.

Sure the movie’s about the heinous things a 30-day diet of nothing but McDonald’s will eventually do to your body, but for the first 15 minutes of that movie…everytime Morgan would start noshing on a burger or fries…damn, I kind of became Homer Simpson incarnate…I could literally read the cartoon bubble above my head that was slurring out something like “mmmmmm burgers…where the hell is the closest McDonald’s?!”

Hmmmmm… well, back to the point. CNN carried the research findings as well but expounding a more causal correlation (not casual, but causal). The author argued that “preschoolers said anything made by McDonald’s tastes better in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.”

Here’s where I am starting to draw the line though. I’m not so sure you can pinpoint the cause and effect as spurriously as the CNN article deduces—advertising as trickery. To me it seems more like more basic psychology. For example, kids are often trained (for lack of a better word) by their parents to see McDonald’s (et al) as a special treat.

Or put another way, it’s like reverse psychology and the parents’ attempts at limiting kids’ exposure to fast food…or soft drinks… or whatever “it” was in your family…in fact, my family (read: my mom) had a problem with serving us sugared cereals. We had this big disgusting pillow-sized bag of unsweetened puffed wheat in our pantry closet.

However… it was on camping trips (and only camping trips) that mom would pull out that multi-pack of miniature cereal boxes… and of course, you and your sisters would fight, scrap and cry over who gets the Sugar Corn Pops (since renamed as Corn Pops) and who got jammed with Apple Jacks (or as we called them “Crapple Jacks”)… oh and the selection of cereal wasn’t even the half of it. Mini box in hand was one thing; then you’d struggle with the blunt end of your spoon to try to cut that ridiculous “H”-shaped pattern they so helpfully outlined with a dotted line… sawing awkwardly through the cardboard… and then more dysfunctionally through a layer of waxed paper… all the while crushing the cereal into a fine sweet grain powder… and then… perhaps 10 minutes later, you find the soggy milk carton that’s been jammed into the corner of a tepid cooler with 3 inches of dirty water and 5 packs of hot dogs and a couple 6ers of cheap beer… and then you’d pour the lukewarm milk into the box…. which now resembles little more than a torn and weathered boxette… and hope to hell it didn’t leak. Camping sure was fun.

Okay, so back to the report, the study’s author Dr. Tom Robinson said the kids’ perception of taste was “physically altered by the branding.” The Stanford University researcher said it was remarkable how children so young were already so influenced by advertising. This is where have a question for him. To me, the kids who haven’t eaten McDonald’s probably wouldn’t have any such preferences despite the fact they may have seen the ads….at least that’s what I’m wondering. If we don’t have a frame of reference experiencing the food, do the ads still work by shear force of familiarity?

Furthermore, even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches. Well, this sounds like something we all learned in economics where scarcity can dictate demand. Things kids love are held back in supply (scarcity) and the result is that we demand more and will do anything for it. Might be a stretch, but I’m searching for a way to not blame advertising for this whole thing since fifty-four percent of the kids preferred McDonald’s-wrapped carrots versus 23 percent who liked the plain-wrapped sample.

So what do we do now… First, let’s give McDonald’s some credit for getting kids to eat iceberg lettuce that the Big Mac contains. That’s a vegetable! Oh, and is ketchup considered a fruit? Kids seem to like the burgers with ketchup.

I guess there’s at least one new thing that might work. Maybe McDonald’s should just sell empty food wrappers that parents can take home and wrap their kids’ food in… because we all know moms should be feeding their kids those healthy Oscar Mayer pizza Lunchable things… right?. Could McDonald’s make money competing with Saran Wrap, Reynolds Wrap and Glad Bags?

McDonald’s selling unused wrappers for parents…yep, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it… Plus, I’ve been dying to use this image again

Kids Skip School…But Not Breakfast

Study: Obese kids are Absent More

PHILADELPHIA—Obese elementary schoolchildren miss a couple more school days on average than their normal-weight classmates, according to a study that says being fat is a better predictor for absenteeism than any other factor.

Are these kids actually sick more often or…do you think it’s because they’re…still walking to school (slowly) when the end of day bell rings? Nah, when I was in school, the truants were often out behind the arcade smoking darts instead of dissecting a frog on one of those wax cake pans. Perhaps the fat kids these days are less nerdy than in my day and are pounding a baker’s dozen behind the portable and making fun of the jocks’ limited employment prospects in the economy of Web 2.0.

Or just maybe they’re still at home trying to finish eating that huge lumberjack slam breakfast (plus the requisite 7 nap-hours it takes hours to digest). These kids are “finishers”! Give ‘em credit.

U.S. Chocolate Sales Forecast to Reach $18 Billion by 2011!

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ — Directly on the heels of Campbell’s
announcement of a possible sale of lux chocolatier Godiva, consumer
research firm Packaged Facts has released its highly anticipated industry
report, The U.S. Market for Chocolate showing a mature market although still primed for growth from $16 billion in 2006 to $18 billion in 2007.

The “report” finds that strong consumer interest in the reported health
benefits of dark chocolate and a general trend towards product
premiumization (including organic and fair trade products) are the main
drivers in current market growth.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…seriously…how many more times are we going to have to read about these (alleged) health benefits of chocolate? Is anyone actually buying this argument or is it simply a lobby to help people mitigate self-imposed guilt? Are you purposefully putting chocolate in your diet to take advantage of these healthy claims? I’d love to hear if you are.

Let me give you an example. I read in this morning’s news that “chocolate is healthy” and on another page there’s an article telling me that I shouldn’t eat farmed salmon because of the PCBs in it. Come on now, if anyone honestly thinks it’s healthier to eat chocolate than salmon, I’ve got $20,000,000 dollars in Nigeria to give you if you don’t mind giving me your bank account number to help transfer the funds to first.

Also, in other news, Mountain Dew has unveiled its Green Label Art series of aluminum bottles. The series, which runs until October, features graphic designs created by a variety of young artists.

These young artists ostensibly found some inspiration in the artwork used by AriZona.

…and that’s not a bad thing. I like what PepsiCo is doing with all of their brands. They are continuing to keep them fresh and active and they’re taking some risks.

Peter Pan Peanut Butter Shows “How Not To” Manage Disaster

Hey, you all recall this story about the poisonous Peter Pan peanut butter from the Spring?

Well, fret no longer mothers of malcontented little tykes. That sleepy little mom and pop company in Omaha, Nebraska that goes by the cute moniker ConAgra has vowed to put your favorite brand of brown smudge back in circulation.

Peter Pan peanut butter will return to stores this month with a satisfaction guarantee.

“Satisfaction guarantees” aren’t uncommon, however, this one to me is bloody odd. ConAgra Foods is seeking to reassure customers it has fixed the problems that allowed salmonella to contaminate the product…and sickened some 625 people in 47 states.

Oookaayy…let me just say that a satisfaction guarantee about whether you’ll like the taste of a product is one thing, but when it comes to a potentially fatal bacteria strain? Thanks for nothing.

What if they’re wrong on this…what if someone didn’t properly clean the whatchamacallit sprocket in the thingamajig machine where it’s made? What good is a free bottle of PB or money-back when you’ve contracted salmonella from a tainted food product? This lame attempt at disaster management just smells bad to me… pun intended. Maybe the packaging should have a violator on the label that quotes the surgeon general verbatim that this product has been tested 8 ways to Wednesday and it is now the purest, highest quality PB on the market. Go hard ConAgra and turn this disaster into an opportunity to make the best peanut butter in the store….a satisfaction guarantee is simply a cop-out.

or…

David Palfenier, president of ConAgra’s grocery division, delusionally expects to restore annual sales to pre-recall levels of about $150 million sooner than expected. “The first shipments go out next week” (…yeah, and the first wave of “shit-ments” are expected about 6 hours after that).

Hasn’t he noticed thanks to the pet food recalls, lead poisoned toys and his own peanut butter fiasco that consumers are now more aware of the crap being fed to them (and their pets) than ever? And I think they care more than he thinks.

“We’re going to be hitting them from all sides,” Palfenier said.

No kidding. I procured a wonderful little virus in Zanzibar last summer and it hit me from all sides as well…during a painfully long flight from Stonetown to Amsterdam to America…and yes, it literally hit me from all sides—I was standing, sitting and kneeling in the rear lavatory of a 777 for 11 hours and an Airbus A330 for 12 hours. Thanks for the heads up ConAgra.

The article goes on to allude to why little old ConAgra is re-launching Peter Pan “now”. Apparently back-to-school season is a good time to be marketing peanut butter…yeah, and nothing relaxes a kid more than knowing he’s got to use the stalls in a school bathroom. Uggh.

Peter Pan won’t win me over with a satisfaction guarantee on a product that costs $3…I’m not that cheap.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Even McDonald’s Thinks Boston Market Sucks

Talk about the mother of all insults.

In this age of emphasizing the convenience of eating on the run, obsessions about the healthy, low-fat, high protein benefits of chicken, and the emotional value of comfort food in an environment where Fox News proliferates national insecurity by the hour…

Now, imagine you’re a a restaurant that offers (allegedly) solutions to these issues…and then the fast food McDump that owns you and has access to all the advertising resources in the world kicks you to the curb.

Yesterday it was noted that McDonald’s is unloading its Boston Market chain to Sun Capital Partners, Inc. for who knows how much money (read: whatever they were offered).

Apparently Boston Market, which McDonald’s had purchased in 2000 for ~$175M, has 630 locations in 28 states.

To me it’s amazing that they have that many restaurants. I know I’ve see some of their TV ads, but I’ve never eaten at a Boston Market, let alone stepped inside one….ever. It’s curious to me how it’s ever stayed in business? Thing is, nobody I’ve talked to has ever eaten in one either.

Have any of you ever eaten there…because this image of their food isn’t selling me very hard.

What exactly is on that compartmentalized TV dinner plate…is that green stuff saag paneer? How about the red blob…lasagna? Or that duck-like chicken? And is that also a lemon?

Yeah, you know what…I think I’ll pass. I’d probably rather eat at Subway in fact.

Need more proof this place won’t lure me in?

Subway’s “Eat Fresh” Irony and Other Wellness Landmines

I finally couldn’t stand it any longer. Even though it’s lunch time.

Certainly there’s a lot of hypocrisy in advertising, if not outright lying…okay, we’ll call it truth stretching.

Recall my comments on the NutriSystem diet where all these formerly fat freaks (nice use of alliteration) expound that losing weight with NutriSystem is “so easy that if you can eat, you can lose weight.”

Oh, but you have to put on your bi-focals to get the truth because hidden on the screen each time one of these success stories is telling us that “my husband thinks I’m hot now”, is the small print (read the bottom of this link) that says “results not typical”…I just don’t get that they can say one thing and yet say the exact opposite at the same time…but that’s advertising and marketing.

Still, despite my now fully evolved ability to filter these incessant contradictions effortlessly (and +500 times per day), there is always one (or more) that gets me so annoyed that I have to say something. There are so many ads, brands and taglines that take advantage of the fact that we essentially sleepwalk through our consumer culture that it’s impossible to call out everyone, but when one jabs you in the eyes and ears like Subway’s bread and butter campaign (note the irony there) I have no choice but to counter-crack in the blue nowhere.

Enter stage left…Subway Restaurants.

I am talking about nothing more than…sandwiches.

First, let me get something off my chest about sandwiches. Sandwiches are just bloody sandwiches and the number of ads for all restaurants that try to make us think sandwiches are some recently invented indulgence that the Roman Empire would envy drives me mad. To me this is akin to the guttural cringe I feel with the billions of ads for cereal we’re subjected to. You watch television or pick up a magazine and it’s pretty damn tough to believe that human beings could even survive until 12 noon if not for…cereal.

Good gawd, am I the only one who finds cereal to be the most overhyped food stuff on the planet? I mean seriously, it’s like what…dried and processed hay…with sugar on it. I say enough of the orgasmic cereal eaters on TV. It’s hay in milk…sometimes with fake little processed and dried out fruit thingys (of course on the box the little dried out fruit thingys magically appear as 3″ strawberries and perfect sliced peaches…I often wonder if they’re supposed to act like those Sea Monkeys I once bought from the classified ads in the back of a comic book – just add water and Ka-Pow! Full sized “sea monkey” (errrr, shrimp brine or whatever it was)…or in this case, a whole strawberry).

Now hype machine has morphed to include fast-food sandwiches (or as they prefer to call themselves now, QSR / quick-serve restaurants…thanks for making me feel better about eating there).

I’m disgressing…again.

Back to Subway and their longstanding campaign to “Eat Fresh”.

Let me first just say I’ve always loved some of the tricks Subway uses. For example, that gaudy, retinally offensive color palette is rather practical actually. It’s intent on giving you somewhere to eat your sangy and then reminding you to get the hell out so the next guy can sit down. In the restaurant industry, turnover is key. I happen to think that’s pretty genius when you factor in the yellow as an attention-getting color when you’re driving past (Oh look, there’s a Subway. Pull over. Check!) and as an accepted message for value priced eating establishments. They draw you in with the yellow and then kick you in the ass-end of your eyes to get out. Spot on.

Then what don’t I like? I loathe this “Eat Fresh” bollocks.

Eat fresh?

Fresh what exactly?

Freshly laid out processed meat slices with a triple shot of sodium? Fresh processed cheeses? Freshly opened canned pickle slices? Fresh olives from one of those gargantuan foodservice steel barrels (okay, it’s a can…but it does require two people and a pick-axe to open). Oh, you must mean the fresh pre-cooked chicken strips waiting to be plucked from the bucket of tepid water. Not much to say about “Fresh” when you look at that motley collection of toppings sitting in black plastic bins under the finger print smudged and sneeze-speckled plexi-glass.

I know, I know. You’re going counter my argument by suggesting that what they’re really talking about is the “baked fresh bread” right?

To paraphrase Tom Cruise, “don’t be so glib”…next time you go into a Subway, take a look at the bread system because yes, even the bread ain’t all that fresh…it’s merely pre-made tubes of dough laid on a tray and then placed in that bread-sized crematorium. That is freshly baked I suppose, but when did the dough get made…and where?

In fact, the freshest item behind the counter at a Subway might just be those surgical gloves the “artist” so frequently changes into as they deftly shift from “designing” your order, to taking your dirty cash, to stamping your frequent sandwich eater card, to taking the next order. I’m betting the company who makes those Kleenex boxes of gloves sells more to Subway than they sell to hospitals.

But hey, people eat there, so obviously the overwhelming taste of salted foods is certainly popular. Who am I to rip them for selling what people want?

Brings me to another point about Subway’s evolution from mere sandwich shop to über-gourmet-wiches.

In response to the popularity of Quizno’s wonderfully toasted sandwiches that are prepped on one side of the counter and then allowed to meander through a 6 foot long baking/broiling escalator to the other side of the counter where the cold vegetables are topped on them, Subway introduced its own version of a toasted sandwich.

Let me ask this first, have you ever had one of Subway’s baked subs? Let me describe it for you…They suck. That oven is the worst. It’s like a circa 1972 microwave oven that the sandwich goes into for 30 seconds or so. When it re-emerges, there’s nothing crispy, toasted or remotely delicious about it. Advice to Subway; if you’re going to do it, do it right or don’t do it at all.

Oh, and since I’m carving up Subway like a Thanksgiving turkey, let me turn my attentions to the other recent ad campaign that’s been on both TV and radio. There’s a spritely couple who go to a fictional
QSR (there’s that contemporary acronym again) called Burger Bonanza. They place an order for saturated fat saturated (do you get that?) metaphorical fast-food items like “spare tire,” “double chin,” “thunder thighs” and a “badonkadonk” (is that a big ass?).

Switch to another channel and you’re sure to see ads with Jared Fogle (the former fat guy cum sandwich pitchman who always seems to carry his old pair of huge pants around with him like he just caught Bonds’ 756th home run ball) and various athletes analyzing the fat content of a Big Mac versus the fat content of a 6″ sub from Subway. The problem is, these ad campaigns go on ad nauseum (and if you’ve eaten at Subway lately you’ll recognize that feeling…has the quality and service declined more than at Taco Bell or what?) about the amount of fat, fat, fat, fat, fat. No mention of the real killer in obesity – calories! In fact, part of the problem is that empty calories don’t fill people up and hence they eat more. Some fat is actually good for you. Good for the skin, good for the joints.

Look I’m not trying to say that Subway is totally full of the crap it sells, but touting it as a diet by promoting a former fat guy who lived on your grub until he lost a thousand pounds is fine I guess, but putting small print on your website that says it’s not actually intended to be a diet plan is pretty bush league. How else are consumers supposed to interpret it when a fat nerd eats only your diet and becomes not only svelte, but rich because he’s now on TV commercials? By the way, am I the only one who noticed on the most recent commercials that Jared’s looking like he’s gaining weight (again)? They’re now putting him in bulky, untucked shirts. Niiiice.

Folks, I don’t eat at Subway anymore because the quality has gone down, the ads annoy me and as Chuck D and Public Enemy said “Don’t believe the hype (they’re just…sandwiches)”

Patron Lambasted for Depicting…Truth in Advertising?

Well, how about that? The paradox of advertising is alive and well after all.

You know how we TV viewers have been subjected to commercials where not-so-wonderful role models, such as Britney Spears encourage your children to choose Pepsi…

and yet…despite being paid who-knows-how-many-millions-of-$$$$$, adorable (not to mention whore-iffic, ignorant, and downright scary) little Britney doesn’t actually drink Pepsi at all. In fact, she’s incessantly busted consuming Coke. No, not “that coke”…although…I’m pretty sure that yes, “that coke”, but for the sake of this article, I’m talking about Coca-Cola—the arch enemy of Pepsi.

Last week there was a great article in BrandWeek last week that suggests celebrities and consumers (those truly amazing fat people who lose 125 lbs. while eating burgers and pizza) who make incredible-sounding claims in advertisements may actually get called to the carpet the Federal Trade Commission if it appears that they are full of…you know what.

Currently, the Federal Trade Commission rules broadly state (read: weakly suggest) that endorsements must reflect the “honest opinions” of the endorser and may not be in any way deceptive (read: celebrities and other remarkably successful endorsers are allowed to shill anything in a commercial and still be afforded the right to change their mind the instant the camera stops rolling. Hey, it’s a free country right?).

In the BrandWeek article, David Palmer, group director/event marketing, strategic alliances and entertainment at Team One in El Segundo, Calif.—where he handles the Lexus account—said he had not heard of the review and doesn’t think it’s causing a stir in Hollywood.

Really? Won’t cause a stir to you car company creatives, huh? What if restrictions are placed on the ridiculous ways you guys market regular cars as if they’re F-1 race cars? You know, the “Camry” racing through empty streets of downtown Los Angeles… wearing sunglasses… in the driving rain… at night… with loop de loops… cornering off the tops of buildings… and of course, in small print at the bottom of the screen in recessive type it says “Closed course. Professional driver. Do not try this crazy stuff in our crappy 4-door sedan because it’s really only built to corner at a maximum speed of 55 mph in all honesty. Sorry.” Yeah, thanks for nothin’. Guess I’ll just hit the sack at 9:30pm, wake up and go back to being a bank teller tomorrow morning.

In fact, why do I have to sit through commercials for some SUVs bombing through deep snow in the high Sierras and the fine print at the bottom actually says “do not try this”? Why do you advertise a work truck that drives into the bowels of an open pit mine with a boxload of iron ore…if it requires a closed course and professional driver? Say waaaaaaa?

At least you can actually read the “Closed course. Professional driver” message on those car ads. BrandWeek found that the Nutri-System ads showing off your favorite former football players who have shed tons of fat says at the bottom of the screen “Results not typical,” but make it so ambiguous that it’s literally impossible for viewers to figure out what “typical” would actually be. Text in two ads viewed by Brandweek was displayed on the screen for about a second—and was thus unreadable.”

LIARS!!!

So now, we get to the irony of all this. One of the most popular spirits brands available is Patron Tequila. Patron is being slammed by the spirits industry’s governing body (The Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.) for using sex to fuel its surging sales.

But as this Ad Age article points out, Patron, which saw its sales double last year, was the report’s most-cited advertiser, drawing complaints for a “whopping” three different ads.

At the heart of the matter is Patron’s “Simply Perfect” ad campaign where, in one of the ads, a couple lay in bed. Over the man’s head, a caption read: “The perfect girl.” Over the woman’s: “The perfect one-night stand.”

“After careful deliberation … the depiction of a man and a woman in bed with an open bottle of tequila at the foot of the bed, and clothes and undergarments strewn on the floor in front of the bed linked the consumption of alcohol to sexual prowess,” the decision read.

Ummm…yeah. That’s a good point. It does suggest sexual prowess…the same way that any and every episode of Desperate Housewives does… Sex & the City (now in syndication), Rules of Engagement, Cosmpolitan magazine’s “Cosmo Tells All” section, Maxim Magazine, that new commercial for Heineken (Don’t Ya Wish Your Girlfriend was Hot Like Me?…Dontcha?)…it just goes on and on. Who doesn’t acknowledge that sex sells in our society?

I say we should thank the good people at Patron for actually calling a spade a spade. In fact, they’re even liberating women by putting the female in the power position in the ad. Still opposed? Well, you should know that these ads cannot be shown at 4:00pm during re-runs of The Wonder Years. There are specific guidelines at the time of day and programming that spirits ads can be shown. So don’t fret that while you’re watching an episode of LOST with your young spawn and Sawyer and that girl are having sex in a cage on the mysterious island, you won’t have to see an ad for Patron that artistically alludes to “sexual prowess”… then while you and the spawn are enjoying some other family entertainment and an ad for Cialis comes on and you have to explain what it means when an erection lasts more than 4 days, at least you won’t have to see the artistically shot Patron ads.

Sadly, Patron acquiesced and immediately withdrew the ad even though it is not a member of this spirits council.

But then again, I guess the complainants would rather eliminate some of the actual truth in advertising, especially any of it that is risqué and happily continue believing that Tiger Woods actually drives a Buick. Puhleeze.

Well folks, that’s my story…and I’m stickin’ to it.

The Evolution of Advertising – Home Based Agencies

If you were anything like me, when you watched this year’s Super Bowl, you were glued to the TV set BETWEEN plays…you were actually waiting for…God forbid…the commercials. The most popular ads were pimping Bud Light and they were kinda humorous, but they did little more than recycle tired jokes/stereotypes and put the face of Bud Light on them. Hardly worth millions of dollars, they simply delivered laugh-track-chuckles and disappeared into a forgettable black hole… never to be referred to again as we product buyers march up and down the aisles of supermarkets and C-stores searching for our favorite products.

Of the few ads that I felt actually worked, were the “user-generated ads”…or put in layman’s terms, regular people created the them; not the glamorous agencies that line Madison Avenue in New York City (gasp!). For example, after receiving more than 1,000 entries for the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest five finalists were chosen and consumers viewed and voted for their favorite ad online and it was shown during this year’s Super Bowl. Doritos ended up airing two of the five winning spots on the Super Bowl.

If you missed “the commercials” during the Super Bowl (click here for ad industry expert blogs and videos of all the commercials). You’ll no doubt agree that the overall quality of ads was a major disappointment. In my view, the Doritos ad was easily among the top 3 ads shown. In fact, many experts suggest that the Doritos’ “Crash” spot might be a seminal moment in the growth of consumer-generated advertising.

In an Online Media Daily article this week, Jason McDonell, director of Marketing for Frito-Lay’s Doritos brand, expounded the need for marketers to “get real” and acknowledge that marketing isn’t merely advertising and communication: It’s about “building a relationship with consumers.” What he’s really saying is that to sell to today’s consumers, you actually need to be more in tune with them than the ad agencies are. It’s fine to sit in a war room and pretend you’re an 18 year old girl, but the fact is, you’re working at an ad agency…you’re a guy…and you’re 32 years old. It’s not out of the realm of possible that you’ll get it wrong. Even slightly off the bulls eye is enough to have today’s consumers filter your message to the trash bin of mindshare. Just today I read and article suggesting that although there’s no consensus number, it is agreed by most experts that we are hit with between 500 and a few thousand advertising messages per day. The theory of evolution tells us that our brains are learning how to filter out the junk.

 

 

For example, McDonell also said that Doritos “learned that its target consumer–16 to 24-year-olds–embrace self-expression, independence, and something he called “belongingness”–the desire to belong to something. Doritos learned that the target lives a “hyperlife” (life on a multitasking, 24/7 basis); likes creative control and evidence of its own creative DNA (it wants a stage to perform on); and craves authenticity, reality, and relevance.” To be honest, that’s a very complex concept (especially for the aforementioned 32 year old male) to nail down in a board room if you don’t inherently “get it”. To that end, Doritos found a winning concept and is going to milk this until the media interest fades. In fact, they just now launched a new online contest asking consumers to vote on two new flavors–Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ and Wild White Nacho. Of course, although I speak sarcastically, Ben & Jerry’s has been letting consumers submit ideas for new flavors for years. They got it a long time ago.

But that’s not even the best part of this consumer-generated-revolution. According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, Doritos posted $19 million in ad spend in 2006 and according to this adage article on XLNTads, there’s very good news on the horizon for you consumers who are also blog readers…some of that $19 mill could come your way in the future.

 

XLNTads is looking to be just this conduit between creative, capable consumers and those brands that are desperately trying to find the perfect voice for their sales pitch.

“The average cost of a Super Bowl spot was $350,000,” said XLNTads CEO Neil Perry. “Some auto manufacturers spend $600,000 to $650,000 to do a single campaign. We say take that same amount of money, pay $20,000 [for creative], and that leaves you more to reinvest in media, in delivering the message.”

Think of XLNTads as giving those of us who are truly brand evangelists a way of turning our fun, little side project we normally jam on You Tube into a revenue source…like those ads on our blog sites (not this blog site, however…yet). All of a sudden Madison Avenue exists in every town, in every neighborhood. I’ve even got a KILLER idea for an ad that I’m currently preparing to lob into XLNTads to see if I’ve got what it takes. Of course, I’m probably going try to negotiate a bigger fee than just 20K. If it takes, I promise to post my results here.

Trying to counter-argue the XLNTads approach, Sarah Fay, president of Isobar U.S., calls this “the democratization of creative content” and she’s skeptical that advertisers will get into the mode of regularly having consumers create the 30-second spot, the idea being that once it’s been done a few times, it’s unlikely to have the same punch. I think, however, that she’s missing the point. It’s not about having a dual message that says “Here’s our message AND listen extra carefully because it was done by amateurs.” Although there was an initial curiosity for the Doritos ads (well, duh, they’re actually running them during the Super Bowl against the most creative big agency stars…and they matched them easily), you’re not trying to leverage a novel concept, but rather, an effective message. The big agencies aren’t banging them out of the park with enough frequency these days, so naturally the brand marketers are looking to see if someone else can translate their messages better…and apparently, yes they can.

This is about the fact that anyone at home now has access to the tools to make a commercial…anyone at home now has the forum to post an idea…brand evangelists are the best buzz marketers and now the brand marketers have seen the light and unless Madison Avenue’s big agencies figure out how to provide better creative, they’re destined to reduce their roles to being media buyers.

Folks, that’s my story…and I’m stickin’ to it.

 

Solving Obesity By Way of “The Taint” – UPDATED Aug 30 with Dangerous News

The Kaiser Family Foundation has just released Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States, the largest study ever conducted of TV food advertising to children. It says that most food ads targeting children or teens are for candy and snacks and half of all ads shown during children’s shows are for food.

The study found that tweens ages 8-12 see the most food ads on TV, an average of 21 ads a day, or more than 7,600 a year. Teenagers see slightly fewer ads, at 17 a day, for a total of more than 6,000 a year.

Hey…do you remember that scene in Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me where the researchers held up photos of presidents and other noteworthy or famous people and the only ones the kids could name were… food characters like Ronald McDonald? Uh-oh.

One in five (20%) food ads targeting children or teens include a push to a website, and a similar proportion (19%) include the offer of a premium, such as a game or toy. About one in ten (11%) have a tie-in to a children’s TV or movie character. And the thing is, this kind of inducement works too.

Now I’m too old to have been interested in the recent spate of movie tie-in characters and collectibles…although now that I think about it, I did ask some of my Canadian friends to try to garner me some of those NHL miniature trophies at the Canadian McDonald’s a few years ago (never got the mini Stanley Cup I wished for though). But, when I was a young teen, my friends and I would go to McDonald’s everyday after school during the “McDonald’s Monopoly” promotions and order food…so we could get some game tickets… so we could win… more food! How exciting it was to win more food “for free”! We didn’t even care about the million dollar prize for completing the game…which we later found out was rigged anyway (McDonald’s Monopoly scam).

Now, unfortunately this kind of topic is the “unfun” part of the food and beverage marketing business. The problem is, even I can tell that kids are getting fatter these days. I believe it’s for a number of reasons, but certainly not to be ignored is the effect of advertising—the fact that we are bombarded every day with an incessant barrage of images of delicious, savory, succulent, scrumptious, indulgent and comforting food options; we’re literally mesmerized with “c’mon, have some. Everyone’s doing it…. it’ll be excellent!” Even yours truly falls prey to this and I find myself on the occasional hunt for “the taint” (a term my sister enlightened me to from Douglas Coupland’s latest novel, “Jpod”).

The Taint:

Douglas Coupland wrote about “the taint” in his recent book, JPod. The taint is when, for example, someone in your office makes microwave popcorn…or brings in some stanky, nasty greasy fast food… and… the smell cloud spreads… spreads across and throughout the office like one of those phantom-monsters from a Stephen King story… it pervades your nostrils and buries deep into the cotton fibers of your clothes and of course, you find yourself feeling revolted… Another example is when you eat fast food in your car (or take leftovers home from your granny’s house) and for the next 2 days, the smell of cold french fries hangs in the car like a trans-fog. (footenote: some people actually will find themselves even craving it in a moment of weakness…a food-turn-on if you will). I wish the taint was banned. EVERYONE hates the smell of microwave popcorn except that ignoramus who nukes up a bag in the late afternoon.

So, upon reflection, perhaps we could harness “the taint”…for the sake of the fat kids children. It seems to me that “visual tainting” is most effective when it comes to food. That is, when the smell is neutralized (ie: you can’t smell TV or print ads). The beautiful photos beckon you to come forth and nosh á la Pavlov’s dog. For, without the smell, a picture tells a thousand words and that story begins to enthrall us…then she enchants us with that glorious image. Behold….the Big Mac!!!

Odor-less taint is like radon or carbon monoxide – the silent killer fattener. So perhaps…just possibly, the wicked smell of someone else’s “taint” could be enough to repel some of us from consuming these smelly processed foods. The chain of logic would then suggest we could put “taint” in the ventilation systems of our schools and thus, kids would be eager to run outside (that’s exercise). Of course, maybe kids don’t hate the taint the way we adults do. How do we help the kids?
Yep, that’s my story…and I’m stickin’ to it.

————————–

News has been published in today’s Seattle Post Intelligence that suggests the buttery aroma of microwave pop corn could be toxic.

So perhaps in hindsight, solving obesity by way of “the taint” is merely opening a Pandora’s Box of other problems. I must say it doesn’t surprise me that the aroma from popcorn is deadly. Possibly the only thing I find to be a more violent assault of my olfactory senses and lung capacity is when you get stuck at a stop light behind one of those diesel school buses that belch blue and black fog bursts at you… you scramble to close the windows in your car (thankfully I’ve got power windows now, but there was a time I didn’t in my old school Honda Civic and had to lunge backwards across the backs seat to try to roll the windows to save my health… only to pull a muscle in my shoulder or neck that requires 10-14 days to recover from), and turn off the air circulation vents before the light turned green. Ahhhhhghhg and what about those times you missed it by even a second or two and a burst of the poison gets inside your car and you hold your breath, you can’t breathe, but the alternative is to open your window to let out the bus emissions is to open your window and let in the bus emissions… talk about the original Catch-22.

So am I overreacting (as usual)? Well, check this quote out: “The chemical — diacetyl — adds buttery taste. Government worker safety investigators have linked exposure to the synthetic butter to the sometimes fatal destruction of the lungs of hundreds of workers in food production and flavoring factories.”

Gets me wondering, you know how your microwave stinks for days, if not weeks, after you fire up a bag of microwave popcorn… is that residual stank going to do a slow burn on my lungs? What if I didn’t even make or eat the popcorn and some ignoramus at work did? Do I have any legal rights akin to second hand smoke?

That little company in Omaha (ConAgra Foods) that owns the Healthy Choice brand is apparentlys the largest supplier of the 3 billion bags of microwave popcorn sold worldwide each year and they have yet to comment on this.

I found that the Angry Toxicologist wrote a very nice blog on this topic back in April.

The Devil Might Wear Prada, but No Longer Drinks Folgers or Cleans with Tide

Remember when you were a kid in the 70’s and early 80’s and there were those rumors that some of the brands in your house that had the Procter & Gamble Man on the Moon with Stars logo meant the company was actively involved in Satanism? Scary stuff!

You were stupefied that this could happen. How the hell (no pun intended) could ANYONE want to support Satanism? Say it isn’t so Mr. Clean. Say it isn’t so.

If you really, really, really did think about it though…there was something sort of creepy about Mr. Clean and thus, the tiniest possibility that this could be more than just an urban legend existed.

Well…let’s fast forward 25 years.

A new BrandWeek article reports that some companies STILL have a “devil of a time denying rumors” they support satanism (or is it Satanism?). Included in the list of companies who are rumored to have sold their souls to the Devil are Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s and even Starbucks.

Luckily, the conclusion to the article disproves these decades-old allegations because Snopes. com (a site dedicated to fact-checking urban legends) says they’re “just rumors”. Phwew.

According to P&G…they’ve spent lots of money and worked through the law courts for years and years and years to prove they do not support “He Who Shall Not Be Named”. Procter & Gamble was gleefully proud to profess that, after being deluged for decades with queries about their evil sponsorships that… “in recent years we’ve gotten hardly any.” The P&G staff warlock then stated “That’s probably because we took aggressive legal action.”

Yeah….that… or the kids who proliferated this story have graduated from junior high and are too busy raising their own kids…and washing their clothes with Tide, feeding the little tykes Pringles and imbibing copious volumes of Folgers Gourmet Coffee! Isn’t it ironic, don’t ya think?

Look, I was as gullible as the next kid growing up, but something happened when I turned 17…I stopped believing schoolyard rumors. I have a very hard time believing that until very recently this has been a massive thorn in the side of P&G. My point is that I follow the food and beverage world everyday and I haven’t heard a peep out of this one since I was 13….uh-oh, unlucky #13. Oooooo…this is getting creepy.

If you were really that concerned about public perception of your clearly creepy logo, why not change it? Or in an advertisement, have a nun cleaning her clothes with Tide, but she washes them in… Holy Water – that’d prove something wouldn’t it?

I personally don’t believe P&G (or McDonald’s or Starbucks…or the New Jersey Devils, or Duke Blue Devils, or Wake Forest Deamon Deacons, etc) ever engaged in Satanism or anything like that, but one thing I do know…you cannot deny that their man on the moon with the stars logo IS, in fact, quite eerie.

But let’s be sarcastically cynical, urban legends and rumors can have a serious effect on some companies.

The company that makes Carmex lip balm has apparently battled questions about whether the product was addictive or if the company adds an acid or fiberglass to rough up people’s lips…and now, If you can believe it (….”or not” as Jack Palance would say), a new rumor has started that accuses the company of putting something in Carmex that causes people’s mouth muscles to relax and give them ’slack mouth’. That’s about as ridiculous as saying McDonald’s puts something in their food will make you fat. Ooops!

These poor companies… always having to defend themselves against… satanism… addictive chemicals… and even worse those poor companies that deal with annoying consumers who allege stupid stuff like “your lack-of-quality-controlled pet food just killed my beloved dog”.

Folks, that’s my story…and I’m stickin’ to it!