| Sunday, April 14, 2002 |
19:29 - From the What Were They Thinking? Department...
http://www.candydirect.com/html/eng/243208-AA.shtml
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There's an ad campaign going on right now that I'm afraid I simply don't understand.
It's a candy from Topps called "Baby Bottle Pop". Apparently it's been around for a long time, but now all of a sudden they're advertising it during prime-time on Cartoon Network. And the way they're doing it... well, it just confuses me.
The kids in the commercials eating the candy (which is, not surprisingly, shaped like a baby bottle-- with what appears to be sort of a pacifier-dipping thing) are teenagers, hip skateboarder types. And yet as they eat it, they have the heads of babies. Computer-animated baby heads.
They're sitting on a park bench, eating their baby-bottle-shaped candy, with their goo-goo heads grinning at each other about how great their various flavors are. As soon as one of them runs out, his head reverts back to the 16-year-old actor's face, and the other baby-heads laugh at him.
Then, as the commercial ends, you get the candy's slogan: "Brings out the baby in you."
So tell me: Who thought this was a good idea?
Whose brilliant plan was it to sell candy by appealing to teenagers' desire to look like babies? What teens did they think would sit in parks, conspicuously holding and eating objects that look like baby bottles? Why did whoever-it-was think that this commercial would increase sales to anybody?
But then again, maybe it is working. At least, if you believe Topps' own page:
Baby Bottle Pops were launched in 1998, and have already become one of the top selling lollipop products in the U.S.. Kids love dunking the delicious candy nipple into the powdered candy for a burst of flavor. Sour Baby Bottle Pops were introduced in 1999 to add pucker power to the line.
I'll never understand marketing. Which is a good thing, now that I think about it.
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