You know, this can of Walmart cooking spray looks a lot like this can of Walmart furniture polish. To avoid any potential pancake disasters, it might be time for Walmart to start introducing some variety in how they design their in-house store brand of “Great Value” products. Also, you probably shouldn’t keep your furniture polish next to the syrup and pan spray in your cupboard at home.
I almost killed my family this morning making pancakes. I think it’s time Walmart put some variety in their labels. [Reddit] (Thanks to all who sent this in!)
‘Pine-Sol flavoured pancakes? My favourite!!’
pinecakes
Who doesn’t love lemon-scented pancakes?
I don’t think that both of those products are located anywhere near the department where this picture was taken…..
But when you unload your bag, or have your child help you unload the groceries? Or if you live with a cane swinger?
Stevedave, can you please stop referring to the blind as “cane swingers”?
Don’t blame SteveDave, blame his thinking-brain dog that tells him what to write.
He’s still bitter the Seeing Eye washed him out b/c he’s afraid of lighting and walked into the jet engine during the test.
Maybe. But it will be ruff.
LOL, I wanna know what aisle I can find a mouse skull in a jar!
If people get them confused with each other, then maybe it’s time to get glasses.
Or…maybe they could use different colors on the tops of the cans?
Or maybe your cleaning supplies should be under the sink and not in the pantry.
Under the sink where the toddlers can get at them?
That’s what Mr. Yuck stickers are for, duh!
that’s what survival of the fittest is for
Toddlers? Who put toddlers in my house? Get them out! Get them out!
Babyproofing: it’s not just for your parents anymore
How many easily-distinguishable colors are there vs. how many things does Walmart sell in a spray can? I bet there’s more spray cans than colors.
And for those of us that are color-blind?
Glasses are expensive.
Also, glasses don’t fix cataracts.
Maybe we can find that jokester who confused super glue with eye drops.
Shiny pancakes at a great value – what more could you want?
This is one of those photos that is way better when you look closely at the background.
Background Check!
Animal testing approved.
You mean you don’t keep dead mice in a jar? Hm.
Unless you rarely cook, I don’t think you’d be prone to mixing up the two. The lids are completely different. One pops off, even… the other doesn’t.
It’s the consumerist, so they’re prone to use furniture polish instead.
One has a cap that comes off, one doesn’t. How could you POSSIBLY get confused?
With the level of stupidity that is prevalent in society, nothing would surprise me.
One also says “Butter Flavored Cooking Spray” and has a picture of a pancake. The other says “Lemon Scented Furniture Polish”. I’m not sure how someone can confuse them either.
When did we become a nation full of people so scared to read what they are doing before they use it? My milk carton looks just like my orange juice carton. When I want juice, I look for the carton with the oranges on it. Not that difficult.
yeah well the bar i used to work at got very interesting one night when the bartender was really tired and really busy. she picked up some milk before work to use in the mixed drinks that called for it.
turns out eggnog is pretty good in some of those drinks. but not all. definitely doesn’t mix well with vodka
We’re about to legalize marijuana here in California. Just sayin’…
Ahhhh…Generic graphic design templates, how we loathe them.
Seriously I have thought they looked alike myself, but I don’t store the two anywhere near each other. Actually I never buy the furniture polish from Walmart. I do buy the cooking spray. Obviously I am cheap about what I put in my body, but not on my furniture. I wonder what that says about me???
No wonder my coffee table smelled like popcorn all last month!
Right !…sure she almost killed her family but her kids have been having a blast sliding down that stair rail
Meh, stupid articles like this is why I barely read this website anymore. Whoever mixes these 2 items up is an idiot and probably deserves to eat Pledge tasting pancakes.
They also keep the super glue next to the eye drops.
Good callback.
And that time they just had handguns displayed in the toy aisle was just ridiculous!
OUTRAGE!!! OUTRAGE I SAY!!!
Wife: New Shimmer is a floor wax!
Husband: No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping!
Spokesman: [ enters quickly ] Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping! Here, I’ll spray some on your mop.. [ sprays Shimmer onto mop ] ..and some on your butterscotch pudding. [ sprays Shimmer onto pudding ]
Link:
/saturday-night-live-shimmer-floor-wax
Thank you. I came here to make sure this obligatory post was taken care of.
We had something similar *almost* happen, but it wouldn’t have been so grave. Boyfriend picked up the can of scrubbing bubbles instead of the Pledge. That would’ve been ONE VERY CLEAN table!
I find Wal-Mart’s depression-era branding offensive even when they are not confusing products. I don’t know what the thinking behind the move is. Perhaps it saves money by reducing design-time, and ink costs (compared to wrap-around graphic advertising.) It hands-down makes the products look cheap and generic. I understand that cheap is Wal-Mart’s niche, but what is the branding strategy of reinforcing to your customers that the products are cheap and generic? It definitely runs contrary to the “aspirational” tactic that most brands pursue.
I’ve yet to find any explanation for the switch. The best that I can come up with is that it is now easy to locate the Wal-Mart brand since they are all the ugly white packaging. Doesn’t stop me from buying it for a lot of things.
Tropicana OJ did the same thing recently. People normally assume the generic packaging contains a better value than the name brand. So they are more apt to grab a more plain package when looking for an item that has a lot of shelf-competition.
I work in marketing and most packaging and branding is psychological. Get the customer to pick your item off the shelf for a closer look and you are much closer to a sale than if they dont touch the item. Your brian will assume that the prettier item costs more.
I actually really like the packaging, it makes me more likely to shop there knowing they aren’t paying some team of marketing MBAs or graphic designers to annoy me. It’s slight overhead I know, but it’s money they’re spending elsewhere if not simply keeping prices lower.
Did you just say you’re offended by the depression-era packaging?
Because those of us that are focused on value, instead of fancy graphics and marketing would rather pay 8 cents less per can and get a plain white can that says cooking spray on it.
I hated when Walmart went to their “white” packaging.
It especially sucks for soups. The different soups used to be different colors, so you could grab the red can for tomato soup, yellow for cream of chicken, tan for cream of mushroom. Now you have to spend time sorting them out and looking at each one as you pull it out to find the one you want.
HEAVEN FORBID you should READ something while doing your groceries. Jesus how fucking lazy are you?
The picture on front usually is a giveaway for me.
but reading is soooooo hard.
I think any person who mixes up the two is a candidate for the Darwin award, and the fewer people like that, the better.
My hand sanitizer looks a lot like my lube container. Imagine the possibilities.
So, you’re the kind of guy with pump action lube. Good to know.
What he’s not telling you is that the hand sanitizer is one of those giant bottles that they supply nursing homes with.
The furniture polish probably tastes better, though.
Does this guy have a mouse in a jar in the background?
My family had issues with the small coffee creamer cartons and small publix egg beater cartons. I always knew which to grab, but my mother was always accidentally putting eggs in her coffee.
Also, how is this an issue? Who would keep cleaner next to food items?
Whats with the dead mice?
I’m glad I’m not the only one to see that.
They used the wrong can for their pancakes!
I can totally see myself having a problem with this, considering I once put ketchup on my pancakes and syrup on my eggs.
It’s Wal*Mart’s fault that people can’t be bothered to pay attention?
Oh wait, this is America. It’s never someone’s fault. It’s someone ELSE’S fault. Always.
I seem to remember something similar to this happening. It turned out that the box of Rid O Rat looked exactly like the box of Skinny N Sweet, well except for the little skull and crossbones. Well, one thing led to another and before you know it, the boss was tied up in some BDSM fantasy romper room, his assistant was on a leadership training seminar in France, and these three ladies really turned the company around. I can’t really say I was sorry for the boss, though. I think it was revealed that he was some sort of sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot. Anyhoot, good times, good times.
+1 “9 to 5″ reference.
I think he disappeared while on the Amazon river, something about weapon-wielding women?
Oy, don’t wanna be a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot that’s been kidnapped by a bunch of Amazon warrior women. That would be VERY bad fortune, cookie.
Atta’girl.
For all the people commenting about how they wouldn’t mix them up, once they both are in your house you may not. However it is only a matter of time before someone decides to pull a prank at Walmart and mix up these cans on the shelf so someone not looking close grabs the wrong one. And by posting pictures of this, the time may be shorter then we think.
It would be easy for these to be swapped without even being a prank. I see 1 or 2 lone items sitting with a display of different but similar-looking items all the time. Several times throughout the day, employees are given carts of merchandise (usually sorted by department) to put back on the shelf. Stuff that someone else found sitting on a shelf in the wrong department, items customers left in an abandoned cart, returns, merchandise people decided not to buy at the last minute and handed to the cashier, etc. It would definitely be very easy for the person sorting the items (or putting them back) to throw one of these into the wrong department’s bin (especially since there’s even a photo of food on the furniture polish’s packaging), then the person putting it away quickly looks down the aisle for a similar looking item, they shove it on the shelf, and the next person trying to grab 3 cans of cooking spray accidentally grabs 2 cans of cooking spray and one can of furniture polish.
Well now I know why the Great Value furniture polish seemed about as (in)effective has lemon-scented canola oil….
windfall lawsuit for the illiterate
For the people who thought they were purchasing sprayable lemons?
aerosolized lemons make sense in so many applications !
think vodka tonics
Think spraying it on your hair so you can sit in the sun and get highlights!
True story: I decided to bake an apple pie to impress my future in laws on Thanksgiving a few years ago. Instead of using cinnamon, I stupidly grabbed the Southwest Seasoning that was next to it and baked it right in the pie. Accidents happen, especially when one product looks just like another and you’re not paying attention.
The pie looked beautiful, but yeah, it tasted like shit.
My can of mousse-like hair remover ended up right next to my very similar-looking can of hair styling mousse. Did I put it there? No. But at least I happened to notice at the last second that I was about to remove all the hair from my head.
Do they smell differently? The last time I used that hair remover stuff it smelled quite malodorous. Also the only way it takes the hair off you have to use something to rub up next to your skin. I have always figured you could never really remove all your hair because it really is kind of tricky to take it all off your legs with that stuff.
It’s always sad the number of people who think those who have vision problems should just die.
Give me a break. One of the cans says “Cooking Spray” and the other says “Furniture Polish.”
I somehow manage to not mix up vegetable oil with canola oil or peanut oil despite the bottles being exactly the same. Because I can read.
What kind of a damn moron… nevermind.
The coloration on the same brand of different oils usually varies more than this.
Seriously I have thought they looked alike myself, but I don’t store the two anywhere near each other. Actually I never buy the furniture polish from Walmart. I do buy the cooking spray. Obviously I am cheap about what I put in my body, but not on my furniture. I wonder what that says about me???
I can remember seeing this post on Reddit and at the time I was wondering why someone would have these 2 cans stored near each other.
Curses! You warned me, now I won’t be able to sue! FOILED AGAIN!
Do not keep your cleaners with food items. Problem solved.
The consumerist never fails to be dumber today than it was tomorrow. Every article posted is always the dumbest article you have ever seen.
You’ve never accidentally put something away in the wrong place? Or accidentally grabbed the wrong item at the store because you bought multiples and it was behind the one you wanted & you grabbed them both? Easy mistake to make with very similar packaging.
As with the superglue thing from last week, this is why I do not keep my furniture polish and a cooking spray in the same cabinet.
I also don’t keep apple juice jars full of gasoline in my fridge.
The same thing happened with a can of Raid and Reddi-Whip…
A local discount grocery store pulled a stunt like this a year or so ago. They had these clear bottles of cleaning solvent in these really cool colors; Purple, yellow, crimson and green. On either side of the cleaning products display were bottles of kid’s fruit drinks and soft drinks, some of which were in clear bottles and came in various colors such as purple, yellow, crimson, green, etc. Right above the cleaning products display was a candy display, among which was various kinds of liquid candy, again in clear bottles and colored purple, yellow, crimson and green. Someone in a hurry, or a little kid who couldn’t (or forgot to) read the labels would not be able to tell them apart easily. Every single one of the cleaning products had a “harmful or fatal if swallowed” warning in small print on the label.
Not only did the store manager not see any kind of problem with this when I pointed it out, the displays went unchanged for over ten months.
I’m usually of the “hey, people should just read the packaging better” stance, but these two do look really, really similar and that similarity could have pretty bad consequences. The furniture spray even has a picture of food on it…when I first glanced at the thumbnail, I though it was a bowl of eggs and the can on the right must be the cooking spray the title referred to. Say an employee putting back stray items accidentally puts a can of the polish next to the cans of cooking spray. We’ve all seen it – a lone item hanging out on a shelf with similar-looking totally unrelated items. The next person trying to pick up 3 cans of cooking spray accidentally grabs 2 cans of spray and one can of polish. When they get home, they put away all 3 cans of the “cooking spray” in the kitchen. The next morning, they accidentally douse their kids pancakes in good ‘ol generic Pledge. It’s not like you can necessarily tell the difference when you spray it out since they both look the same (and not everyone can even smell the difference – I can’t). Honestly, no one actually reads every single label on every item they own each time they use it. If the person only shopped for food, they would have no reason to suspect that the item they grabbed – the one sitting next to two other similar-looking items labeled as cooking spray – is anything but edible. No one can say they’ve never bought chunky peanut butter when they meant to buy creamy or diet pop when they meant to grab regular because they were stray items put back in the wrong place and you grabbed a couple, thinking they were all the same.
Is it wrong that my first impression when I saw the pics was “YAY! Walmart is making a Great Value version of the Batter Blaster!”
O, Bummer
Look on the bright side, your plates won’t stick to the table any more!
Does this not remind anyone of the story of the lady who super glued her eyes because she kept the eye drops near the super glue?
Just waiting on this one…
Maybe they ARE the same thing… (insert “duh-huh-duhhhhhh” music here)
you stole this from reddit
Same ingredients, same flavor, same receipt check at the door….
As my husband pointed out, waxy pancakes that catch fire……YUM!
Way to reference Reddit.com, where this was originally posted
Yeah, because Consumerist never posts news that hasn’t already been reported elsewhere…
Here’s a thought…. before you spray something in your pan, read the label.
Same goes for spraying something on your furniture.
First I kill my dog by serving him Petchow rat poison, and then I kill my family by serving them pancakes with generic lemon cleaner in them…
Probably tastes about the same, too.