Just in this month, or towards the end of last month, Cadbury decided to downsize it's Family Block from 250G to 200G. That's 20%, or 1/5th of the product gone, and while it is a little cheaper now, the price is going to creep back up slowly until we're paying premium price for only 80% of the product.
The worst is how difficult it is to notice the difference. When you pick up one of the new blocks you think "oh, they changed the wrapping to cardboard" and drop it in your cart, continuing your shopping. It's only when you put the old product beside the new one that you see the difference, and even then it's difficult. About 4mm off the side, 2mm off the top, and maybe 3mm thinner.
This kind of thing is happening everywhere, in all kinds of products we're slowly paying more and more for less and less, and we just keep right on buying it. If we showed some social responsibility and started boycotting the products, the manufacturers would learn to either drop the price, or increase the amount of product. The problem is we don't. The changes are so subtle, and we're usually so apathetic, that we keep right on buying it. We have the numbers advantage, but we never use it because it's just easier to shut up and do what we're told.
More and more jobs are being driven overseas to decrease manufacturing costs, our pay all stays the same, and yet things just keep getting more and more expensive, because there are people out there who have more money than anyone could possibly spend in a lifetime, and they keep demanding more. Noone deserves more money than what they could seriously spend in their entire life. Some people out there are so rich that they could spend a million dollars every few seconds, and yet the interest from their bank accounts would still be greater than what they spend, not even considering the money they continue raking in. But I digress;
It's about time we started standing up against corporate greed. Take some initiative for yourselves, and stop just taking the bullshit that the government, and large corporations are throwing at us by the bucketload.
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Nestle are doing this to their 'Nestle Club' range as well. They are even going to the lengths on their 'old' packaging of adding stickers saying "look out for our new packaging, coming soon" or words to that effect.
ReplyDeleteThe Nestle Club downsize is 200g -> 180g, and it is using the exact same tactic of switching to cardboard packaging of the same profile as the 'old' packaging.
Due to some videos showing up on the net about your product I thought I would use my newly acquired knowledge regarding your marketing and packaging practices to point out a little information regarding your customers for you to ad to your marketing geniuses' knowledge base.
ReplyDeleteAs you may have noticed, the internet has provided endless numbers of corporate customer bases the opportunity to create our own advertising for or against the products which are presented to us in the open market.
Although we sometimes enjoy creating blogs and videos about products we are happy with, we are actually much more enthusiastic about creating anti marketing campaigns to complain about products and practices we find less than honest or desirable.
I think it's important to point out that we, as consumers, do not set the overall retail "Ripoff tolerance level." for others. We simply quit buying products associated with manipulative advertising tactics ourselves while suggesting others apply the same formula as well. Much in the way that "suggested" retail prices are set from a formula applied to wholesale prices." Even though corporations such as Cadbury have no direct "Legal" control over the pricing of their products at retail outlets.
How is this for some viral anti marketing eh?
"Welcome to the new and improved Cadbury customer base. We still wear the same clothing but purchase 20% -100% less Cadbury products. This is, of course to provide a more family friendly "Honesty in advertising" experience as well as a new and improved "Wallet feel." Both by keeping more money IN our wallets and less Chocolate induced ass mass sitting ON our wallets.
In order to promote a more pleasant social sharing experience, we, the consumers, have come together to stand, point, laugh at and quit buying from companies which treat us like the imbecilic cattle minded children which our product suppliers and their marketing executives wish we really were.
We understand how difficult it is to just tell us the truth about higher production and distribution costs and the fact that we are killing ourselves with over sized junk food portions since, in the past, it was considered bad business form to do so. We also understand bad habits are hard to break but just as we consumers are coming to grips with the truth that junk food products are about as healthy for us as street drugs and war, companies such as Cadbury may want to identify the bad marketing habits which may very well lead to a dramatic decrease in fiscal health."
I kinda think that rather rocks myself :)
That's right, now what the new millennium of businesses may have to come to grips with is that in a world of instant, mass communication for the individual, it just might be a good idea for corporations wishing to survive the storm to ween themselves of the truly bad ideas which unethical marketing minds are still trying to churn out.
As consumers find themselves with less and less money to spend and more and more reasons and opportunities to identify products which they should avoid, businesses around the world are, at the same time, shutting down in record numbers. It is, of course, so tempting to say those very mortal words "It could never happen to us" which were spoken by so many now missing businesses of the past but as we all know, it only takes one or two missed steps and a little bad press, rumors or consumer education to send customers fleeing and bring the creditors banging at the door.
We understand how difficult it must be to give up this habit of treating us like sheeple since it paid off so well in the past. On the other hand for every marketing campaign which corporations sink millions of dollars into, we consumers can create millions of anti marketing campaigns for free and it only takes one viral success to take out millions of dollars worth of manipulative ad copy. Sounds like an unhealthy gamble compared to winning over customers loyalty and product recognition with truthful marketing.
Just to show you there are no hard feelings I have written Cadbury a brand new ad completely free of charge. (That's a lie, you would have to pay for it but I figured you would respect me more if I treated you guys the way you guys treat us :) I would even be happy to perform it for a reasonable fee. It is guaranteed to gain huge product recognition and millions of dollars worth of free publicity both in viral viewership and on news coverage around the globe. It's my gift to you if you have the nerve to put down your junk ads and give us consumers the healthy advertising we truly thrive upon.
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Hi this is ScaryDAve at thechurchofdave for Cadbury Chocolates who have finally decided to wake up and come to the inevitable conclusion that the consumers of the new millennium are too dangerously smart for us to risk annoying with manipulative advertising any longer.
In this global economic crisis we know that your business is a luxury which we can no longer take for granted. The high prices of production, distribution and marketing have hit us just as hard as everyone else and require us to take drastic measure.
In order to cut costs, regain customer confidence and provide viral video distributors with fun new material, we have placed our entire marketing department into large shipping containers which are about to be pushed off a ship floating over the very deepest part of our worlds ocean. Inside each container full of advertising executives are large explosives which will detonate once the containers hit the oceans floor providing the creatures of the sea with a nice fleshy snack and new steel habitat to live in and on.
This is our way to say "Thank you" by giving back to a world which has given us so much already while cutting costs and helping to make humanity a more loving and honest experience. We apologize for not being able to do the same with the legal department. Yet.
Our replacement marketing department will be completely manned and controlled by "Melvin" down in the office mail room between his lengthily World of Warcraft battles. In order to save even more money, this advertisement was paid for by WOW because we mentioned their name twice and they have more money than they really need anyway and face it, consuming our products while wasting adversaries and screaming "Leeeeeerooooooooy JJJJennnnnkinnnnns!!!" is an awesome way to spend your day or night or day and night!
Melvin has also decided to mention that in keeping with our new truth in advertising policy we will now take this moment to point out that since costs are going up and since we really don't want to lay off workers or raise prices, we have decided to sell smaller portions for the same price in a box which says "Less is more. Unless you buy two!"
Melvin also wanted us to bring up that instead of hiring a personal trainer to work off that rapidly growing posterior acreage, you can now count on Cadbury to help you lower your caloric intake at no extra charge!
That's right, buy Cadbury for the same old price and loose weight for free! Ok that's prolly a lie but Melvin said you would understand as long as it was funny and we think it's freakin hysterical.
So remember, "Less is more! Unless you buy two.....and you know you really want to so go ahead!"
No lawyers were harmed in the making of this commercial but we are still workin on it. "