In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:
Branding X
Okay, we’ve heard it for years out of Hollywood; all they make are sequels, reboots and movies based on comic books. Why? Branding! They only want to make stuff that people already know, and therefore is easier to market to the public. The problem is that this mentality has spilled over into the snack aisle down at my supermarket.
Think a minute…has there be any new cookie invented and marketed that hasn’t involved the word “Oreo?” Or ice cream, Pop Tart or dessert item? No, there hasn’t. Nabisco has totally redirected its Research and Development team to see how many different flavors of Oreo they can come up with or how many different foodstuffs they can jam them into. There was a time when the cookie aisle was chock full of sandwich cookies, chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, fudge cookies, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, animal crackers and wafer cookies. Now, it’s 50 Shades of Oreo. Is this it, America? We put a man on the moon and can email Groupons, but we can’t think of a new kind of cookie?
And things are not that much more promising over in the candy aisle, either. Things are pretty much down to variations on Reese’s and M&Ms. How many ways can you reshape a peanut butter cup? How many things can you stuff into an M&M? And I’ve been sucked in. I’ve bought them. They just aren’t that good. Those Oreos filled with weird colors and artificial favors that taste funny? They leave an unpleasant aftertaste and change the color of your poop. Just because I like to eat M&Ms doesn’t mean I want a bunch of mini-M&Ms shoved into my ice cream cake. It’s like biting into little frozen rocks.
The closest thing I’ve seen to innovation in the cookie industry is Keebler ripping off Girl Scout cookie flavors. And that’s pretty low, taking business away from Girl Scouts. No wonder the Girl Scouts were forced to counter with allowing their cookies to get mixed into my Breyer's ice cream.
So, this is where we stand, America. We’re unable to advance forward because people may not like something, it costs too much to try and it might fail, so we hedge our bets by marrying our concept to something else that was successful, despite the fact that the risk of failure is still there.
And don’t get me started about the potato chip aisle!
The closest thing I’ve seen to innovation in the cookie industry is Keebler ripping off Girl Scout cookie flavors. And that’s pretty low, taking business away from Girl Scouts. No wonder the Girl Scouts were forced to counter with allowing their cookies to get mixed into my Breyer's ice cream.
So, this is where we stand, America. We’re unable to advance forward because people may not like something, it costs too much to try and it might fail, so we hedge our bets by marrying our concept to something else that was successful, despite the fact that the risk of failure is still there.
And don’t get me started about the potato chip aisle!
