« The Most Dominant NFL Defense of the Past 20 Years? | Main | Douches and Turds Aren't The Issue »
October 28, 2004
Make Mine A Double Shot Of Addictive Chemicals
Seven Products That Don't Have Caffeine, Yet
From a product development and positioning perspective, one of
the more reliable methods for encouraging repeat purchases is to
engineer your product to be physically or emotionally addictive.
Emotionally addictive products are admittedly a bit less obvious
(few realize that their self-esteem actually does depend on a
certain sort of makeup or brand of garment) but are at the same
time beset with vulnerabilities; quite simply, customer switching
costs do not include physical illness. If you want people really
hooked, you're going to need something that really puts their
body chemistry in a choke hold.
Depending on conventional wisdom and the feelings of the
authorities, addictive products are either evil and illegal (cocaine),
evil but legal (tobacco), or served for free in the workplace to
make us all more enthusiastic factors of production (caffeine).
Caffeine, chemically a bitter white alkaloid, is clearly the current
darling of the addictive product set. We love our Coke, our Pepsi,
our Mountain Dew, our Starbucks, etc/ et al; caffeinated
beverages account for 70 percent of soft drink sales. Though
caffeine does pose some health risks, it's no tobacco, and certainly
no cocaine or heroin. But it is STILL definitely addictive -- and
massively popular. So if caffeination works for coffee and soda
pop, why not other products as well? Seven nominations for
caffeination:
Breakfast Cereal: it's no accident that coffee is the most popular
morning food or drink in America -- nothing quite like a
first-thing-in-the-morning pick-me-up to start the day. But the
coffee taste isn't for everyone; why not offer the pop of caffeine
in another traditional breakfast food? Decades of clever marketing
from the Midwest have convinced America that there is no better
breakfast food than cereal -- so why not just go with it? That is,
why not Caffeinated Corn Flakes? Special C? Kaffeine Kokoa
Krispies?
Baked Goods/ Bagels: a close cousin to the breakfast cereal
idea, for those of us who (a) can't do the milk thing, (b) aren't
afraid of -- gasp! -- carbohydrates, or (c) are looking for something
more portable than a bowl of milk. Thus, let us look forward to a
not-so-distant future where we can feast on caffeinated
cinnamon raisin bagels and blueberry muffins with bounce.
Chewing Gum: nothing worse than coffee breath, right? But, as
coffee remains, ahem, addictive, our need to consume it leaves
many of us in quite a pickle from a bad-breath perspective. So,
we carry gum and pop a piece before an important interaction.
Why not close the loop entirely and just put the pick-me-up in
the gum itself? It could also work in a post-meal capacity and has
the potential to be wildly popular among children! And think of all
the flavors and exciting product naming ideas!
Breath Mints: same idea as above, though in a slightly different
format. This would be the classier, more upmarket version of the
gum -- a little more refined, and a viable option for those who
might consider gum chewing to be something of a downmarket
habit. Curiously strong indeed!
Ice Cream: coffee's position as a post-meal drink owes largely to
its ability to balance the enervating effects of a large meal. That
is, we have a coffee after a big dinner so that we don't
immediately pass out after said dinner as our poor, beleaguered
bodies struggle through digestion. So why not just add it directly
to dessert and save us all the trouble? (Note: coffee ice cream
does precisely this.)
Energy Bars: right, so if it's called an energy bar, why not really
pack it with caffeine? Forget this nonsense about complex
proteins and blah blah blah -- if you want energy from your cardboa
rd-tasting snack bar, then you had better opt for the caffeinated
version. I see no reason why Red Bull wouldn't be able to market
the hell out of something like this.
Beer: last and certainly not least. When Red Bull is the club drink
of choice and the RBV is an essential element in any big night on
the town, why not put the caffeine right in the beer as well?
Since there are already reports of folks mixing Red Bull and beer
(pineapple-flavored Miller Lite? Ew. Gross.), action need be taken
to end the misery of those who want to guzzle large quantities of
suds but still want to stay up all night (or get a bright start on
their day).
Posted by thatkid at October 28, 2004 4:35 PM under
Stuff To Buy
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)Copyright (c) 2004-2007 thatkidinthecorner
