If I’ve learnt nothing else in my 25 years working in consumer psychology I’ve learnt that society insists on segmenting itself over, and over, and over, again. Not a bad thing for market research consultants, but a bit of a problem for Marketing Managers trying to allocate dwindling budgets, and a huge headache for late night supermarket shelf stockers. Try and say that three times.
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© The Ponder Room
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On Saturday while waiting in line, somewhat patiently, at the local supermarket, I was confronted by a wall of Easter eggs; dark, milk, marshmallow, and sugar, an egg to cater for every segment. Clearly the world is not only multicultural it’s now multi-dietary too.
What began with us daring to wrap our taste buds around cultural cuisines beyond sweet and sour pork, has developed into a range of commonplace dietary labels; Vegetarians, Lactose Intolerant and Vegans, well almost commonplace.
That’s when I saw it. There lurking on the back self was ….
A lactose free Easter bunny!
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I could almost hear the cries of delight from deep in the land of Lactose.
Incase you were wondering a dairy free Easter egg contains..
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So there you go, another option for the adventurous amongst us. I should add that there were also ‘Nut Free’ and ‘Sugar Free’ options.
Looking back at this vast array of choice, I was reminded of an article in The West Australian where two kids were asked to taste test a sample of Easter eggs. Faced with dark chocolate, light chocolate, expensive and cheap options, they picked the cheap bunny even though the expert food critic questioned the quality of the chocolate therein.
As the last of my items were placed back in the trolley I walked away, but not without pondering ….
- Whether the kids were so sugar laden by the end of testing, that the first egg simply tasted better because they felt less like throwing up at that stage.
- Whether their choice had more to do with the familiar bunny shape, than the actual taste of the chocolate.
- What the kids would have thought about the lactose free Easter egg with Soybeans.
- Whether the Marketing Manager at the chocolate company that produced the lactose free eggs, will be spending the Easter break rocking backwards and forwards in a cramped white padded cell, while staring at his enormously complicated 2011 Easter Egg Budget spreadsheet, and screaming ‘I’m still over budget, why did the CEO’s wife have to be lactose intolerant, why?’
By the way if you have any Vegans or Lactose intolerant people in your family and want to know where I found the eggs just ask.
1 Comment
Sorry for the typos in this post (if you read it before I corrected them). I could say it was too much chocolate, but I haven’t had any yet. Will try not to post late at night in future