This morning I was flipping through my October issue of Today's Parent while Madeline sat beside me, eating her blueberry waffle, and noticed an advertisement for Nestle Quik. The ad caught my eye because the entire thing seemed to be trying to make the case that adding sugary, chocolaty stuff to regular milk is still nutritious, at least compared to soft drinks and juice. Well, maybe, but I still take umbrage that some people out there are trying to urge parents and their kids to take an otherwise nutritious glass of milk and adulterate it with empty calories. I know that some children probably won't drink any milk at all if it wasn't flavoured, but I doubt those families need to be marketed to at this point.
I still shake my head whenever I see the tv commercial from the Dairy Farmers of Canada that specifically advertised chocolate milk! I love chocolate milk, but I can't understand why this product needs to be set apart for an advertising campaign. Does it make a difference to dairy farmers if I buy two litres of skim or two litres of chocolate milk?
... and that ends my Thursday rant.
My mom used Quik to get my sister to drink her daily glass of milk, but she never labored under the impression that this was healthy. If they are going to market it, maybe stressing that kids need calcium, and this will get them to drink their milk? Not that it actually worked well with my sister. The only thing that worked was a nightly "cookies and milk" that made the treat dependent on us getting a full cup of milk down too.
Posted by: nonlineargirl | October 12, 2006 at 11:01 PM
I believe the thinking goes that more kids and adults will drink milk if there is chocolate in it, so for the milk industry it IS better to advertise chocolate milk then just plain milk. But I will agree with you that it is plenty annoying!
Posted by: Alexandra | October 13, 2006 at 08:33 AM
Alexandra beat me to it. Also, it's about market saturation. (I learned this concept from my businessman father-in-law.) If I understood him correctly, there's only so big a percentage of the market that a single product can claim. Thus, if white milk has reached its peak, there isn't much the producers can do to sell more, so then they come up with a variation that maybe people will buy IN ADDITION to the healthier stuff. So, even more milk being sold. That's how they increase their market share.
Want to hear something even MORE devious? My father-in-law's company (he worked for it, he didn't own it) made, among many other products, garbage bags. When they reached their market saturation point, and couldn't sell any more of their bags, they deliberately came out with an inferior bag, one which they KNEW would likely split and tear. They used a different brand on it.
Why? Well, people would buy the new, less expensive brand (and increase the company's market share), but it would split and tear - so they'd come back to the original bag, convinced that others were inferior (thus increasing brand loyalty).
Fascinating and devious, huh? Don't you feel horribly manipulated?? I'm quite sure his was not the only company that indulged in such tactics!
Posted by: Mary P | October 13, 2006 at 10:28 AM
I think that definitly chocolate milk is a better choice than sugary juice (empty calories) and pop (heart attack waiting to happen). I think that as long as parents can keep the kids from having the "un-healty" versions of food, the better. But, I think it's important to stress that it's a "treat", and not an every-day thing.
Posted by: Julie Morrison | October 16, 2006 at 12:22 PM