Wednesday, March 02, 2005

"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

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an absurd idea to make candy like animals run-over by vehicles! How can anyone come up with something like that?

I'm glad it's come to a stop. Really gives a wrong message to kids. Very cruel and pathetic indeed.

Vid

Houseowner said...

jeezz! how brazen can they get?

ramya

hari said...

Hi Shyam,
It seems to be the height of perversity and a handiwork of some frustrated business graduate working under a blood sucking businessman, both sadistically enthusiastic to come up with a new concept.

Unfortunately these days the materialistically creative advertisers and ruthless marketing professionals never bother to match the marketing concepts and gimmicks with the emotions and thoughts of prospective consumers and totally fail to foresee the larger it may have on the society as a whole. All they want is to make quick money.

Harish said...

now that's one candy I wudn't eat! :(
yuck!