This does not bode well.

In 2009, Frito Lay started selling their Sun Chips brand in a new kind of packaging. They began using a biodegradable polymer made from corn in their plastic bags. The corn based plastic bags would break down much, much faster in a landfill than the traditional bags, which will probably still be recognizable as snack food packaging when the Sun expands to a red giant star.

A giant corporation is taking a step to protect the environment. Yay!

There was only one problem. The new bags were much noisier than the old ones. Noisier? Yup, a lot noisier. The corn based bags made a crinkling sound, kind of a cross between cellophane and tin foil being crumpled up. That is, if a jet engine was being fueled by tin foil and spitting out cellophane exhaust.

Well, the increased amount of noise was sufficiently irritating that customers began calling up and complaining. Apparently the folks stuffing their pie holes with salty snacks want the chips to be crunchy, but not the packaging. Frito Lay has listened to their customers, and has pulled the new biodegradable plastic from production on all but one flavor of Sun Chip. They’ll probably switch that line over as well in a year, once they’ve used up the corn-based plastic resin they are contractually obligated to buy.

They’ve probably already contracted for oil tankers to bring in the petroleum for next year’s plastic. No doubt from some despotic Middle Eastern country where the only other export is hatred for America. “We would spit on you decadent, chip loving Americans, but we have no water, so our bodily moisture is precious to us.”

What strikes me about this situation is that this one small step towards sustainablility is being retracted for the most miniscule of reasons. Some poor sap at Frito Lay headquarters made the gutsy decision to try out the biodegradable packaging material. Don’t you know that guy’s career is in the toilet now. It’ll be a long time before anyone else suggests changing the packaging to improve the environment.

“You’re a bright guy, Jones, and you’ve got a bright future with the company. So let me give you some advice. See that poor, shambling wreck of a man? The ruined giant pushing the broom around the offices? He was the man who championed the Sun Chips packaging change back in ’09. Don’t go pushing the ecology thing. It won’t be healthy for you.”

To deal with resource depletion, global warming, and dependence on imported oil, we will all have to make changes in our lifestyles. Here we have an example of a positive change that was rejected by the consuming public because the bags were too noisy. That gives you an indication of how far the average man in the street will go to protect the environment.

No, it doesn’t bode well at all.

What was old is new again.

Remember Digger?

A couple of years ago the pharmaceutical giant Novartis launched a marketing campaign for their drug Lamisil. Lamisil was the tradename for an oral antifungal medication. The primary use of the drug was to treat toenail fungus.

As a prescription medicine, the idea of the marketing was to convince consumers to ask their doctor for a scrip for Lamisil. The biggest hurdle in doing that was to get people aware of the existence of toenail fungus. I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend a great deal of time critically examining my toenails for signs of health.

So the advertising brainiacs in charge of the campaign decided on a tried and true solution: they created an animated personification of the disease to explain what was so terrible about having toenail fungus. Enter Digger. A commercial from the original ad campaign is shown below.



As the animated avatar for a fungal infection, Digger walks the fine line between being cute and annoying at the same time. Sort of like the in-law with the store of great jokes, who stays three days too long on a visit. Or the bedraggled looking street cat that lets you pet it and purrs, then turns and claws the crap out of your hand and wrist.

Lamisil lost patent protection in 2007, at which time generic competition came onto the prescription market. That was about the time the TV commercials stopped running. With generic competition and the accompanying loss of market share, heavy advertising probably reduced the profitability of the Lamisil brand.

After all, if you’re spending big bucks on TV ads to make people aware of the existence of the disease your drug treats, and then people end up buying the generic because of lower copays, all your ads are doing is driving sales for your competitor. So you drop the ads, lower your price, and you can still make more money on lower sales volume. Television advertising is expensive. It costs vastly more to market a drug than it does to manufacture and distribute it.

Fast forward to today. Novartis has launched a topical version of Lamisil as an over the counter medication. The most common reason folks pop into Walgreens to pick up antifungals is to treat athlete’s foot. Now, profit margins on over the counter meds can be pretty good, but you have to support the brand with marketing.

So Digger has been resurrected, this time as athlete’s foot fungus. You can see the new ad here.

So not only are pharmaceuticals resurrected in new formulations, but now the drug mascots are being reused as well. Maybe there really is nothing new under the sun.

What's in a name?

A deal was recently announced the Russian national oil and gas company, Gazprom, and NNCP, the Nigerian state oil company. The two entities are forming a joint venture to build a $2.5 billion pipeline in Africa.

The joint venture had to have a name, of course, so the executives in charge decided to form a name by smooshing together syllables from the names of the two parent companies. In a decision that will go down in the annals of bad branding history, the new company will be named Nigaz.

Nigaz in Africa. Oh. My. God!

Now, I know neither party in the deal is a native English speaker, but there are branding consultants who will check things like what your name sounds like in various languages, and clue you in about potential missteps before you issue the press release and get business cards printed. I guess the Russians didn’t talk to those guys.

Nigaz. That’s why I spend so much time reading the news. Reality is so much more entertaining than fiction.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Quiznos Blinks

In the fast food sub sandwich category, the two biggest players are Subway and Quiznos. Due to a huge head start and relentless franchising, Subway is the dominant company in the marketplace. Their advertising has traditionally focused on differentiating their products from other fast food categories such as burgers and fried chicken.

Subway ads typically emphasize the fresh baked bread and the vegetable fixings piled on their sandwiches. They have positioned themselves as a lighter alternative to other fast food restaurants. Their spokesperson, Jared, has built an entire career around a friendly personality and the fact that he lost a lot of weight by eating Subway food.

Quiznos, on the other hand, has played off the category leader Subway. Quiznos ads have pointed out how much more meat is on their subs, and stressed the oven toasting. “If you want a sub,” they seem to say, “shouldn’t it be our sub and not theirs?”

As a consumer of both chain’s sandwiches, I can attest Quiznos does make a superior sub. What the Quiznos ads forget to mention is that it is also a more expensive sub. The price differential for the premium Quiznos product is $2-$3 more than Subway would charge.

Recently, Subway began a promotion centering around the concept of “the $5 foot long.” It started with selected foot long sandwiches being discounted down to a $5 dollar price. The promotion was so successful (aided by an incredibly catchy ad campaign) that the $5 foot long concept has been extended to all of their sandwiches.




The motivating idea behind the campaign is simple: more food for less money. It is the same animating concept behind McDonalds dollar menu.

Now Quiznos is responding with their own foot long product. The ads for the ciabatta bread sub emphasize the fact that it sells for only $4. In fact, the ad ends by repeating the price three times, albeit with a humorous twist. The new Quiznos ads are clearly a reaction to the Subway campaign. The message is “our sub is cheaper than their sub.”

The ads are funny and memorable. They feature the toasting oven as one of the characters in the ad. The oven’s voice is intended to resemble the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A space Odyssey.




There are two ways to establish the value proposition in the mind of the consumer. One way is to emphasize the superior features or quality of your brand compared to the competition. The other way is to emphasize a lower price.

With their new ads launching this new product, Quiznos has abandoned the superiority strategy of brand building. They are now trying to sell a cheaper sandwich than Subway. Once you start competing solely on price, it is tough to build your brand up as a premium product.

In the long run, this new direction will hurt Quiznos more than the short term market share gain helps them.