Tis the season for...Spokesfoods

November 27, 2010 | Comments (0) | Share

This time of year is the apogee – or nadir, depending on your point of view, of food advertising.  It’s the time of year when spokesfoods are at the peak of their annual prominence.

One of my earliest TV memories is a spot with cute little piggies with long scarves ice skating in circles and singing:

“Sing it over and over and over again!
Frosty Morn...
Sing it over and over and over again!
Frosty Morn...
The height of a piggy's ambition,
From the day he is born,
He hopes that he will be good enough
To be a Frosty Morn!
So, everybody join in
And sing it over and over and over again!"

I loved those ads and pestered my mama to buy Frosty Morn sausages and bacon until the thought occurred to me that if she did, I’d be eating the darling little piglets. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated and disturbed by the idea of spokesfoods, whose goal is to get you to buy them and eat them.

The current batch of spokesfoods includes Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, who lecture mothers on why they should be fed to kids (“Keeps ‘em full, keeps ‘em focused).  Mothers are supposed to go to a website, Mom’s Homeroom, to “find out ways to help your kid succeed in school”. I don’t know any mother who would admit to relying on a spokescereal to find out how to help her kids succeed.  The spokeswheats aren’t very appetizing OR very cute.  They’re now urging us to eat them warm, which brings an even more disturbing picture to mind, illustrated so well on demianrepucci.com.

Another (over)active spokesfood is the M&M Pretzel, which at least doesn’t take itself too seriously.  The x-ray is kind of gross but I’ll have to admit I tried them.  I can deal with a funny spokesfood a lot better than a preachy one.

Black Book Magazine has a great article called the 10 Creepiest Edible Spokesmen:

10. Frosted Mini-Wheats

9. Mrs. Butterworth

8. Mayor McCheese

7. Twinkie the Kid 

6. Chips Ahoy Cookies

5. California Raisins

4. M&Ms

3. Charlie Tuna

2. Kool-Aid Man

1. Pillsbury Dough Boy

I do, however, observe a glaring omission: the CHILDREN who wanted to BECOME spokesfoods in the Oscar Meyer Weiner commercials from the 1960s. This is perhaps the most disturbing of all – especially the little boy who tries to rebel and is bullied into becoming a spokesweiner.  Truly distressing.

The Chick Fil-A cows are, of course, an excellent example of an anti-spokesfood.  And this year’s "Shrek Forever After, Vidalias Forever Sweet"  campaign was, according to the Wall Street Journal, a smashing success at getting children to get their mothers to buy Vidalia Onions. According to the Journal, "On a recent visit to a Thriftway supermarket near this onion-growing center, Aiden Harvill spotted a jolly green giant at a bin stuffed with Vidalia onions. "Mama, there's Shrek," the three-year-old shouted. He then threw a tantrum until his mother plopped a bag with Shrek's image into her shopping cart."  Spokesogres are a lot more effective than spokesonions, it seems.

I’ll admit that I’m an advertising junkie – I actually even get a kick out of bad ads – if they’re bad enough.  I just think that advertisers should seriously consider the implications of the spokesfood approach to marketing.  Perhaps some guidelines would help:

1. Spokesmeats: No

2. Spokescandy: Yes

That’s what we mean by Never Stop Communicating

– in a non-disturbing way if at all possible.