"Roadkill" candy - in very bad taste

Wasnt planning on the pun, but it happened anyway...

Talk about something being in bad taste, though! Kraft, the American food giant whose name is synonymous with cheese, also makes candy, aimed at children. And their brainstorming idea at some point in the summer of 2004 was fruit-flavoured sweets called "Roadkill". Yep, Roadkill.

Unbelievable, but they actually thought it was a good idea to market candy that looked like the poor animals that die under the wheels of cars and lorries on motorways. Nice, huh? So they produced flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels with tyre markings down their back. Whee, what fun for kids! Not.

Naturally enough, animal rights activists protested strongly, saying that it gave the wrong idea to children and encouraged cruelty. At the very least, I'd say, the company showed a complete disrespect for the random killings of harmless animals. What's more, it also trivialised the ugliness of such deaths. Be that as it may, after all the protests and boycotts, Kraft agreed to take Roadkill off the market.

What completely floored me was what the company's brand manager, Jim Low, said about the whole thing: "We understand how this product could be misinterpreted, and we respect that point of view." COULD BE misinterpreted??? "Roadkill" is not a word that lends itself to any sort of misinterpretation... unless we're talking Redneck country, in which case I guess it could be interpreted as "food". But to normal people everywhere, roadkill means dead animals on the road with their innards squashed out, being pecked at by crows! Sorry to be gruesome, but that IS what it's about.

Not to Kraft. They interpreted "roadkill" as "fun sweets for kids". Boy, it really makes you wonder what sort of people are being grossly overpaid to come up with such ideas aimed at the kiddie market! Very likely those with a warped imagination.

Read about it here