Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
It used to drive my wife crazy that I bought Land 0 Lakes butter instead of Cub’s house brand. Cost an extra buck a pound. Why buy it?
I claimed it was because Land 0 Lakes is a farmers’ cooperative so I was helping farmers, but she could smell the cow manure in that answer. The truth is the packaging reminded me of home, of the olden days, of traditional brands I grew up with. The old white guy on the can of oatmeal. The Black woman with the kerchief around her head on the bottle of maple syrup. The mermaid on the can of tuna. And the Indian girl on the box of butter. They all changed over the years, of course, each time getting more modern looking. But now – the butter girl is gone. Just a big, empty zero where she used to be.
Look, guys, I can get butter anywhere. I don’t need to spend the extra buck for yours. That girl wasn’t hurting anything. Yeah, okay, so a couple of professional complainers bitched about it. But millions of the rest of us bought it because we knew and loved the label, the connection to tradition. You just cut me off from that.
Now there’s no reason for me to spend the extra buck. So I won’t. Ever again.
Joe Doakes
I often wonder whether companies are ever going to rebound, to snap back on the whole politically correct virtue signaling thing?
It would be interesting to try and trace the psychology of advertising and marketing as related to clinging to social trends.
“wonder whether companies are ever going to rebound,”
The History of CDC should be a cautionary tale for modern corporations – back in the 70s CDC became very socially conscious (and addicted to publicity) making virtue-signaling a part of their corporate culture. After 10 years of squandering Seymour Cray’s legacy on non-profitable social ventures while paralyzing their engineers with the dictum “if its not in Seymour’s notebooks we don’t do it” they started circling the drain in the early 80s, finally disappearing by the 90s.
Don’t look for modern corporations to do any better, like the CDC management of the 70s & 80s they are too inflexible and brittle to recover from the shocks market evolution delivers.
Since becoming CEO is late 2018, Beth Ford has overseen a $1 billion decline in Land O’Lakes revenue ($14.9 billion in 2018; $13.9 billion in 2019) and a 19% decline in net earnings ($255 million to $207 million).
Perhaps instead of succumbing to the latest PC cause du jour and in the process harming the company’s brand, Ford could focus on what really matters to the company’s owners, like growing sales and revenue. Stripping the Land O’Lakes maiden from its packaging is not a step in the right direction.
Racist.
(There, I said it and gosh, now I know the little tingle of smug self-righteousness that liberals get to feel but conservatives don’t. They say it is addictive – but it doesn’t hurt to try it just once. Does it?)
greg,
from the Holy Modal Rounders STP Song;
“…Take a whiff on me
Have a revelation, the first one’s free
Soon you’ll be addicted to eternity
We’ll be pushers, cosmic style
It’s too late to stop now.”
Funny that the design of the package was updated to the one they removed, by a Red Lake Chippewa artist named Patrick DesJarlait in 1950.
Of course, his son Robert, also an artist, according to MPR’s report, was proud of his father’s accomplishments and pointed out the floral patterns that he added to Mia’s outfit.
They did find a critic among the Fond du Lac Community College faculty that said it should be replaced with pictures of missing native women and children.
Not to be left off of the virtue signalling bandwagon, Wally’s lap dog Peggy Flanagan had to tweet out her thanks to LoL (see what I did there?) for ” this important and needed change.” then declaring; “Native people are not mascots or logos. We are very much still here”, with a link to minnesota reformer.
Having had to watch a multitude of HGTV repeats I have noticed a common thread in advertising. The almost universal use of intersectionality. The old white guy is always evil, helpless or stupid. The white woman is the leader or provider in the family or she is just so successful without a male. The young white father is always playing with the kids or doing the housework, never working to provide for the family. The minorities are the successful couples enjoying the fruits of their labor or the successful, confident professionals. Most couples, married or shacking up are bi-racial with mixed race kids if any at all.
Now, there are exceptions, but they are only that – exceptions. There are those unique exceptions that must not be trifled with – the jewelry market where the guy is oh so sophisticated because he is buying diamonds for his girl (ever see a gay guy buying diamonds in a jewelry commercial?). Then there are the commercials that exploit old people, they are hardly intersectional.
I guess we have reached the point where we really don’t care how marketing distorts reality.
Regarding falling sales at Land-o-Lakes, I’m guessing it has far more to do with falling consumption of milk products, and declining prices for the same, than anything else. Regarding the maiden, I confess that I’m not entirely following how a picture of a beautiful young lady holding a pound of butter amounts to (quote from Ruth Buffalo) “human and sex trafficking of our women and girls”. Not that there aren’t things that did, but this? Seriously? Would we then argue that the “Dutch Boy” incentivizes pedophilia?
When younger — we used to amuse ourselves by “altering” the image profile on the box.
Definitely ‘sexist’ consider me shamed….
I buy Kerry Gold butter, just to taunt the Sconnies who aren’t allowed to purchase it in their state. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to meet behind the Hudson bandshell at midnight to swap cases of Kerry Gold for cases of Glaus Spotted Cow beer, which isn’t allowed to be sold in Minnesota.
Life finds a way.
“Native people are not mascots or logos. We are very much still here”
Okay, only white folks on packaging from now on. They won’t mind.
NW;
I love Spotted Cow, too.
My sister lives in Hastings, a stone’s throw from Prescott. She brings me a case every time we have a family gathering. I’ll be getting one on Sunday. Screw you, Wally!
Open table not prepared for negative seating, halts trading of table futures.
On a related note: There are 20 million barrels of oil floating just floating on about three dozen ships off the coast of California with nowhere to go or unload.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-21/oil-tankers-are-surrounding-california-with-nowhere-to-unload
Boss, I’ve smuggled a few herd of Spotted Cows across the border in my day.
Job isn’t done until they replace her with a 12 year old drag queen.
Let’s get rid of the Betty Crocker image, since she type-casts women as domestic servants. Let’s also do away with the Pillsbury Doughboy, as his image belittles weight-challenged people and burdens them with a lifelong negative self-image that destines them to a life of misery.