1 post tagged “slogans”
Oreo, a chocolate sandwich cookie produced and distributed by Nabisco, used to rely on the slogan, "AMERICA'S FAVORITE COOKIE." Lately--in the last two, three, I don't know, years-- this slogan has transformed. An Oreo is now "MILK'S FAVORITE COOKIE," and it just begs the question, what prompted this change?
I see a frenzied board room meeting among the top execs at Nabisco, the guys (and gals) that first came up with the concept of taking two thin, wafer-like, nearly tasteless "chocolate" cookies, slapping some "creme" of questionable origin in the middle, giving it a strange name, and delivering them into the chubby hands of Middle America all sitting around in a panic.
"What do you mean the results of the studies are different this year?" one shouts in the face of a scared young newcomer.
"It's just that, well, since the dawn of the Great Oreo, the yearly studies have given us utterly conclusive evidence that the Great Oreo is, indeed, the favored cookie of the great majority of Americans," he explains, words tumbling over each other as he tries to save his ass while still delivering the truth. "This year, though, something's different! We're not really sure that Oreo is 'America's favorite cookie!' anymore!"
There are anguished cries. Groans of defeat. The PR department is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. What to do, what to do?! They put $75 million into that advertising campaign, and now the slogan has no basis! Oreo is not America's favorite cookie! Sales will plummet, lay offs are certain, the whole company is going down, down, down!
"But wait!" A voice calls out, threaded through with hope and confidence. "We can just change the slogan!"
Gasps of indignation and disbelief.
"No, really!" The voice continues, and no one's really sure who's speaking. Is it the voice of the Great Oreo itself?! "No need to be drastic. We'll just... we'll use a slogan that can't be proven... and therefore cannot be disproven!"
"But where will we ever find such a slogan?" Nabisco's CEO asks, morose and resigned to his dark fate. He wondered if Burger King was hiring.
"Milk's favorite cookie."
An ethereal light burst through the proverbial clouds hovering over that conference room. And the company was saved.
But then again, maybe "Milk's favorite cookie!" is only new in America. Of course they couldn't ship Oreos overseas with packages proclaiming the cookies to be "America's favorite cookie!" Was the Oreo also "Canada's favorite cookie"? "Mexico's favorite cookie"? "Uganda's favorite cookie"? Or perhaps, instead of wasting money on the production of so many different packages for so many different countries, Oreo was simply "milk's favorite cookie" when it ventured beyond the borders of America.
Then, when America's loyalty shifted and the Oreo was no longer a favorite, they were simply able to fall back on the slogan already popularized in other countries. The graphics specialists just had to do some clever cutting-and-pasting in the commercials, a quick ADR session and they looped the word "Milk's" over the word "America's," and all was well in Nabisco once more.
Of course, it will be another dark day in snack foods history when the Wheat Thins slogan, "Great Taste... Big Crunch" comes under scrutiny due to the general consensus that the crackers' crunch is more "medium-sized" than "big."
