Marketing madness: do
we really need plastic incentives?
 1.
The drink measuring cup:
Today if you buy a bottle of Schweppes tonic water you get a cute little
measuring cup with it - made of plastic. And when you buy another
bottle of tonic water you get another cute little measure, and then
another and another ... It doesn't say what kind of plastic the cute
little measure is made of. But even if it is easily recyclable, what
are we supposed to do with more than one? The marketing people think
it's such a good idea that it's their TV ad campaign as well.
 2.
The cream pot lid:
If you buy a pot of cream from Tesco it comes with not one but two plastic
lids - double the environmental pollution on a pot of single cream.
Sure, it's very convenient to be able to close the half-used pot securely,
but then what do you do when it's empty? It doesn't say what kind of
plastic either of the lids is made from. And what do you do
with the next one - and the one after that?
 3.
Squeezable plastic Marmite pots:
What a clever wheeze! Marmite in squeezy pots! Oh yeah?
You can now only get the middle sized pots in plastic instead of the
original glass. Not very environmentally friendly, though, is it.
What's worse is that they are more expensive: £1.19 per 100 grams
compared than 89p per 100 grams for the smallest pots. Do they think
that Marmite lovers are so loyal that they can take them for a ride?
I've never even bought one, so it wasn't till I saw this photo (on the
blog Hostler.com)
that I realised that the joke is on Marmite - the pots are the wrong shape
to squeeze!
I've noticed that lately there are a lot
fewer squeezy pots on display in the shops and lots more of the small
glass ones, so most customers must also be giving it the big thumbs
down. I hope they haven't sold off the template for making the
original glass ones - looks like they're going to need to re-start
production soon. The whole exercise will probably become a marketing
case study of how not to do it, as it fails on environment, ease of use
and price all in one go!
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