A grocery growth ray is set to hit a popular condiment and several kinds of baked corn with names ending “tos.” To push the brands as being good values, Heinz will be selling slightly larger ketchup bottles, and Frito-Lay is adding 20% to Tostitos, Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos – without raising the price. Unlike the grocery shrink ray, you can bet this change will be loudly trumpeted on the package.
heinz
Potato Chips: Now With Fewer Carcinogens!
By 8.2.08
Four major potato chip makers have agreed to use less of the carcinogen Acrylamide under a settlement with the California Attorney General’s office. Frito-Lay, Heinz, Kettle Foods, and Lance Inc. also agreed to pay a $3 million fine for flouting state laws that require companies to place warning labels on products with carcinogens.
Do Not Be Lured Into Target's 2 For $4 Heinz Ketchup Trap
By 7.9.08
Andrew writes in to let us know that he’s started to look more carefully at prices when shopping at Target… and so far it’s saved him $0.61 on ketchup…
User-Generated Content Won't Displace Madison Avenue Anytime Soon
By 5.26.07
Many people see ads and think they could do better. According to the New York Times, no, they can’t. The Times is following the struggle of H.J. Heinz to find five user-generated ads to air on TV sometime this September. Companies like Heinz are discovering that user-generated content doesn’t save time or money. For the foreseeable future, Madison Avenue will be responsible for creating the ads we love to hate.
Many entries are mediocre, if not downright bad, and sifting through them requires full-time attention. And even the most well-known brands often spend millions of dollars up front to get the word out to consumers.
We prefer YouTube’s user-generated content to the schmaltz spewing from Madison Avenue. What do you think: is the content really worse, or are companies unwilling to step away from their comfort zones? Tell us in the comments. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
Cool, Innovative Advertising?
By 12.29.05
Sometimes, with a lurch, I realize that – every moment of the day – I am constantly surrounded by the insentient equivalent of dozens of plaid-suit and bear-grease hucksters, doing jumping jacks and breathlessly screaming for me to look at them. Wherever I go, they are there. Even weirder, I realize I’m so used to these obnoxious guys following me around all day that I don’t even notice when, for example, they scream at me to look at something so surreal or stupid its actually kind of awesome. Like a load of porridgy-eyed Dubliners omnibusing to work in the morning in a giant locomoting can of Heinz Baked Beans. Or a massive inflatable robot hovering from the corner of Tower Records in Boston, with his laser eyes ominously glowing.
