The Dried Fruit Marketing Battles

Advertising is weird. There was a time in my life when I figured that if I wanted to make a lot of money, I could do so by going into advertising. I'm pretty good at rationalization, which is pretty much the basic key to advertising, as far as I can tell. Find a way to explain why what you have is better than what the other people have.

Case in point: Those of you who have followed me on facebook (and certain others) know that I eat prunes. (With a chopstick, in fact, but that is not relevant to my current point.) Prunes have had a bit of a marketing challenge. Most people when they hear the word "prune" think "old person obsessed with bowel regularity". Which is not high on most people's list of things that are hip.

So the people trying to sell prunes had a challenge. How to make it possible for non-old people who are interested in, if not obsessed with, bowel regularity to buy prunes without embarrassment. (They decided not to go with the plain, brown paper wrapping approach. Interesting?)

Thus it was that the prune became a "dried plum". That is, in fact, what a prune is, but still. It was a clear bid to change the image of the lowly prune. One brand, not yet satisfied, chose to capitalize on the proposition that small things are cute and therefore irresistible, and started selling "bite-size" dried plums. You could buy a bag of the normal ones, or you could get the bite-sized ones. As if any normal person really has trouble getting a whole, normal-sized prune in their mouth all at once.

Here's what's hilarious. I was recently out of town and didn't bring my prunes with me. So we bought some. It was a different brand than the one that sells "bite-size" prunes. And on the back of the package, in obvious if not pointed response to the idea of sorting prunes by size, it says (I swear I'm not making this up!): "Inside your (brand-name) package you will find the right size prune for each member of your family -- the way Mother Nature intended..."

Advertising is weird.