Major marketing product changing it's name after 130 years

[webny99]

I recall a lot of breakfast items invoke casual theft and misappropriation; other times, legal confusion or chaos. Captain Crunch brought maritime order to cereal, Cookie Crisp provided the argument with its "cookies for breakfast" manifesto, and the Sugar Crisp bear policed the mean streets of Puffed Oats. Meanwhile, households all over our great nation still fight over eminent domain of toasted waffles called "Eggos". Breakfast in America is a lawless time. When crimes go unchecked and unpunished, they move on to illicit lunchroom trading and the unchecked corporate greed of pilfering from the lunchroom refrigerator (except on Friday afternoons, when it all gets thrown out). We hear chants of "winner-winner chicken dinner", but we secretly fear the Hamburglar.

So one could only assume that kit named Trix was torn away from the mother's teat of Kix too soon, and psychologically, the Trix Rabbit has just been endlessly searching for its mother, playing out these fantasies by stealing from children.

LOL, that was definitely one of the best rabbit holes I've ever been down!

[SEWIGuy]

This topic is a great example of why progress is so hard...

**microaggressions aren't important
**people are too sensitive
**hyperbole and absurdism

Because of course it is easy to ridicule and ignore.  But hard to learn and understand.  So, so fragile.

[kphoger]

But, again...that is in Mexico. The underlying causes and solutions to them are going to be very different than those needed to fix similar problems in the United States. So it doesn't make sense to include your experience in Mexico in a discussion of a US-based company changing their product to address a US-based problem.

But, again, I brought it up in response to a claim that I'm not "the target of microaggressions"–not in direct response to Quaker changing the name of their syrup.  I never claimed the causes or solutions were the same.  The fact is that the same people who exhibit microaggressions is one social setting can very well be the target of microaggressions in another social setting.  And I haven't only given examples from outside the country in support of such, but also examples from minority-dominant places within the US.  Claims like "blacks can't be racists" really get to me, and I saw csw's assertion as basically a micro version of that.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson seems to find it pretty offensive. Obviously, he's one person, but that tweet includes an example of some old, pretty clearly racist Aunt Jemima advertising (which is why I didn't embed the tweet, so those who don't want to view it don't have to).

Well yes, it's easy to find individuals who have taken offense to Aunt Jemima.  But I have a couple of questions:

1.  Are those tweets and Facebook posts representative of a sizable percentage of the black population?

2.  Where were all these people decrying Aunt Jemima before this year?  Are people only taking offense because it's the popular thing to do right now?

3.  If this is just a racism bandwagon that everyone's jumping on, but four months ago nobody had a problem with these product names and such, then is it really reasonable to expect corporations to change their branding just to cater to the bandwagon?

[formulanone]

This topic is a great example of why progress is so hard...

**microaggressions aren't important
**people are too sensitive
**hyperbole and absurdism

Because of course it is easy to ridicule and ignore.  But hard to learn and understand.  So, so fragile.

I get it, but just don't care if they change it. Loads of things get changed for a variety of reasons, and there's no fuss. However, anyone who's ever argued that I-99 needs a new number but takes umbrage to the corporate decision-making of renaming of syrup needs to back up a few spaces.

I mean, I don't know I'd take in a hypothetical "Uncle Mosher's Krafty Kosher Breakfast Bagel Blitzkreig", but I'd probably think it was respectable if I was younger (see, we're famous and cool!) and a bit troubled by it once I was an adult (as in, what kinds of awful stereotypes are that?) because then people associate cultures with food.

"So schmeerable!" (sorry, had to get a fake slogan in)

And that's the funny thing about America...we're really wrapped up with cultural association and food is the way to hearts and stomachs. I think we ignore a lot of that stuff because hunger is more primordial than others' feelings, and we unconsciously associate a lot of different foods with other cultures; this isn't really a bad thing. Negative stereotypes are the bad thing - that somehow you only consume one type of food based on others' ignorance is really a minor slight in the whole scheme of things.

But I struggle to understand what the archetypal "mammie" has to do with syrup, so scrapping it is a start. I just liked to think that it was okay that we really had an aunt of African descent, after all...it's true.

[kphoger]

But I struggle to understand what the archetypal "mammie" has to do with syrup

It's because that "mammie" was the household slave cooking your breakfast in the morning.

I just liked to think that it was okay that we really had an aunt of African descent

This.  I don't see how it's a "win" to remove a black woman from a product label.  Now my children won't see that smiling black "aunt" when they walk down the cereal aisle.

[US71]

This appears, rightly or wrongly, to be political correctness. 

[mrsman]

I think the shelf life of this thread is shorter than that of Aunt Jemima's syrup.

Dictator Scott will be around in a second.

+1


iPhone

Not only is the thread still alive, he even posted on it to continue the conversation.  Wow.

[lepidopteran]

I recall a lot of breakfast items invoke casual theft and misappropriation; other times, legal confusion or chaos. Captain Crunch brought maritime order to cereal, Cookie Crisp provided the argument with its "cookies for breakfast" manifesto, and the Sugar Crisp bear policed the mean streets of Puffed Oats. Meanwhile, households all over our great nation still fight over eminent domain of toasted waffles called "Eggos".

You left out:

• Barney Rubble constantly scheming to abscond with Fred Flintstone's Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles
• A vampire and a robotic ogre duking it out with a ghost over whose monster cereal is better
• A heroic boy who saves his girl from giants, gorillas, etc. after downing some Cheerios 
• Two WWI-era fighter pilots battling over their cereal's superiority (Sir Grapefellow and Baron von Redberry)
• Then there were the Quake vs. Quisp skirmishes

[kphoger]

I think the shelf life of this thread is shorter than that of Aunt Jemima's syrup.

Dictator Scott will be around in a second.

+1

Not only is the thread still alive, he even posted on it to continue the conversation.  Wow.

I wonder if the mods draw straws to see who has to moderate the Off-Topic board.  Not an enviable position.

[webny99]

I think the shelf life of this thread is shorter than that of Aunt Jemima's syrup.

Dictator Scott will be around in a second.

+1

Not only is the thread still alive, he even posted on it to continue the conversation.  Wow.

That's called tact. Locking it would have played right in to the criticism.

[Tonytone]

I think the shelf life of this thread is shorter than that of Aunt Jemima's syrup.

Dictator Scott will be around in a second.

+1

Not only is the thread still alive, he even posted on it to continue the conversation.  Wow.

That's called tact. Locking it would have played right in to the criticism.

I have no issue with any mods on here, we need mods in order to keep things working & from getting to crazy.... However Ive noticed certain people are kinda harsh on how they talk to people. A simple PM or saying something in a better way creates better results & relationships.

Hence why SG1 said what he said.


iPhone

[kphoger]

and you too, Uncle Ben ...

At least I understand getting rid of Aunt Jemima.  I'm not sure it's the right decision, but at least I understand it.

Uncle Ben's rice, on the other hand...  It's named after a real-life black farmer who was famous for his rice.  Getting rid of that I just don't get.

[webny99]

However Ive noticed certain people are kinda harsh on how they talk to people. A simple PM or saying something in a better way creates better results & relationships.

Who's harsh, the mods? I don't see how you could say this, and yet agree with SG1's name calling.

[Tonytone]

However Ive noticed certain people are kinda harsh on how they talk to people. A simple PM or saying something in a better way creates better results & relationships.

Who's harsh, the mods? I don't see how you could say this, and yet agree with SG1's name calling.

The convo is dead web. Dont worry about it to much.


iPhone

[webny99]

However Ive noticed certain people are kinda harsh on how they talk to people. A simple PM or saying something in a better way creates better results & relationships.

Who's harsh, the mods? I don't see how you could say this, and yet agree with SG1's name calling.

The convo is dead web. Dont worry about it to much.

Alrighty. I'm not worried at all, just wanted to be clear about who you were addressing.

[hbelkins]

And as for stocking up on Aunt Jemima products? Good luck with that - who in their right mind would pay money for empty plastic bottles that were discontinued because they depicted a racist mascot?

Collectors of old and discontinued packaging. You'd be surprised at what there's a market for. Like road maps issued by defunct gasoline brands. Many map collectors don't do it because they're roadgeeks. They do it because they're collectors of what's called "petroliana."

Why do you think people were buying up Twinkies when it appeared Hostess was going to go bankrupt and the brand might not be revived? It's not because they are delicious and nutritious. It was for the future collector value.

As for "Aunt Jemima" herself, she was a Kentucky native named Nancy Green, born about an hour from where I live in Montgomery County. The current packaging no longer features her likeness, but she played a key role in the creation of the brand and made quite a bit of money for serving as the original model.

[US71]

And as for stocking up on Aunt Jemima products? Good luck with that - who in their right mind would pay money for empty plastic bottles that were discontinued because they depicted a racist mascot?

Collectors of old and discontinued packaging. You'd be surprised at what there's a market for. Like road maps issued by defunct gasoline brands. Many map collectors don't do it because they're roadgeeks. They do it because they're collectors of what's called "petroliana."

Why do you think people were buying up Twinkies when it appeared Hostess was going to go bankrupt and the brand might not be revived? It's not because they are delicious and nutritious. It was for the future collector value.

As for "Aunt Jemima" herself, she was a Kentucky native named Nancy Green, born about an hour from where I live in Montgomery County. The current packaging no longer features her likeness, but she played a key role in the creation of the brand and made quite a bit of money for serving as the original model.

Aunt Jemima was (according to what I have read)  originally a white woman in Blackface doing minstrel shows.  The name "Aunt Jemima" was used for the product. There is conflicting info whether the lady who was the original model made a s#itload of money or not.

As an aside, Aunt Jemima led to some of the current marketing/advertising laws. Other companies attempted to cash in on the name until the owner sued.