02. March 2007 (2)

just had to make this second entry for today .. starts with a little story .. went shopping tonight and saw that there was new yogurt from Danone called "naturalia," apparently it's all natural ingredients (in yogurt, imagine that!) and I just had to take a look at it when I saw it was almost $8 for the multipack. So here I am, reading the blurb, reading the ingredients, back to the blurb, looking for the 800 number and calling the company ... why, you ask? well, the blurb says "no preservatives, no gelatin, no colours, no artificial flavours" but the ingredient list clearly states "natural colours (strawberry, peach)." no biggie? you might not think so .. but "no colours" means no colours and then I guess there shouldn't be any colours listed in the ingredients, right? Sure, it says "natural colours" but what exactly does that mean? if they're talking about the naturally ocurring colours in strawberries and peaches, then why list colour as an ingredient? if they are adding "natural" red and orange colours to the strawberry and peach variety of yogurt then the question is simply why???? people aren't buying the yogurt based on colour, it's in an opaque package. I don't need my yogurt to be red or dark pink to convince me that it tastes like strawberries. I don't know about you, but adding just a few ripe strawberries to anything, like, say, yogurt and mashing it together in something like a blender makes for a very pink substance .. doesn't need added colour! The nice lady on the other end of the 800 number in Quebec was quite concerned and explained that they meant to say "no artificial colours" but added that she would be sure to bring this to the attention of "the Danone people." What more can an educated consumer ask for?

and since we're on the subject of consumer products:

• how long does a product get to be "new and improved?" shouldn't 6 months about cover it? shouldn't 3 months? and if something works really well and lots of people buy it and love it ... why does it need to be improved?
  
• should it take 20 minutes to find the toothpaste you're looking for when shopping? Do we need 300 variations on a theme? how about let's do something outrageous and have all toothpaste whiten teeth! wouldn't that be weird? (I'm a marketer's worst nightmare)
  
• why can you never find bread that has a 'best before' date at least a week away? it's always only about a day .. who eats a whole loaf of bread in a day? and does the bread know when midnight strikes on the evening of the 'best before' date? .. 'cause it always seems to go moldy on that very day .. imagine, bread having it's very own circadian rhythm .. although I guess it's really the fungi that own it, not the bread itself ..