I'm not buying that: most overhyped products at your supermarket

Simon White
June 30, 2014
The Age
More hyperbole and hype than any shopper could ever need.
I’m no genius when it comes to shopping.
In fact, in a lot of ways I’m probably every marketing person’s dream sucker.
Case in point, I recently bought a whole bunch of pretty much unneeded aftershave online, because it sounded cool and seemed cheap. When my mate’s fiancee later asked me what I was wearing, all I could say was “Not sure. It comes in a red bottle”.
Apparently footy fans will buy anything…
But you know what? There’s only a certain amount of hyperbole even an imbecile purchaser like myself can take.
And it’s occurred to me on my meandering and haphazard trips to the supermarket that there’s an awful lot of what I’d call “tosser” marketing out there.
So here are (at least) nine shopping products where I’ve decided I could definitely do without the hype.
I know there’s likely to be plenty more out there, so feel free to comment, tweet or email with your own favourites.
Chips on my shoulder
You won’t see me denying the importance of potato chips in a single person’s diet. Or the general excellence of the Red Rock range. But surely the Tasmanian Mountain Pepper Braised Beef and Hunter Valley Roast Chicken With Lemon & Thyme varieties are taking the piss? For starters, I once spent 12 days in Tasmania and never once did anyone tell me the mountain pepper was any better than the regular pepper . And for seconds, these are FREAKING CHIP FLAVOURS WE’RE TALKING ABOUT!
You scream. I scream. Really we should all just be screaming
Of course, chips are just the tip of the (literal) iceberg in a far wider ranging modern day obsession with locational flavour. Want to find even more out-there examples? Then just head to the supermarket freezer. Back when I was a kid – admittedly when fax machines were still considered state-of-the-art – fancy ice cream meant Neapolitan or Butterscotch Brickle. Now you can’t even have honey flavour without it having to be “Kangaroo Island honey”. Vanilla becomes “Madagascan vanilla”, coconut is “Sumatran coconut” and rasberry is “Derwent Valley rasberry”. And that’s not even mentioning “Snowy Mountain Blueberry Crumble” (my current favourite marketing idea: a dude riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat, under the guise of the “The Man From Snowy Mountain Blueberries”). Fortunately one pillar of “taste” soldiers on against this tide of locationism: flavoured condoms still seemingly come only in your tried and tested banana, strawberry, orange and apple. When prophylactics branch out into the realm of “Murray Valley Salted Caramel With Pistachio Nuts”, that’s when we’ll know product flavouring has really jumped the shark.
Don’t sweat the technique
Now here’s a trend I definitely don’t understand. And it seems to be just about every fragrance manufacturer doing it: 48-hour deodorants. I’m not sure what’s going on in your life that you’re spraying this stuff on and thinking it might need to last for two whole days (or even believe that it would) but I’m firmly against any marketing push that actively encourages people to shower less. If Consumer Protection was dinkum about its responsibilities to the public at large, it would impose a 24-hour (or even 12-hour) limit on the duration of all deodorants.
A dog’s (and cat’s) breakfast
Disclaimer: I own perhaps the world’s most doted on 12-year-old Dalmatian (and if you’re reading this Scooby, hi! Hopefully I’ll be home by about 3.30pm for a walk). But if he was a cat, there would be no way he’d be fed anything as pretentious as Purina Fancy Feast Royale, Chicken, Surimi & Vegetable In a Decadent Silky Broth. And as a dog, there’s equally zero chance he’ll be chowing down on Nature’s Gift Just Natural Gourmet Steak & Kidney With Chia (the superfood fad is bad enough for humans, let alone canines). Nothing wrong with pets eating well. But when it reads like they might be eating significantly better than their owner – and off the menu of a flash restaurant in Paris – something is clearly out of whack.
Norway? No way I’ll be going there
Listen, I’ve got no scientific background that would let me cast any doubt on the premise that Voss Water is “bottled at an artesian source in pristine Southern Norway, producing a naturally pure water, low in minerals and incomparable in taste”. But at $8 a litre (warm off the shelf!), you can leave me right out of it. Most times I don’t even like to pay $8 per litre for wine. And I particularly wouldn’t like to pay it if I knew deep down I was really just forking out the cash so I could have an oversized specimen jar-style glass vessel to drink tap water out of later on. Here’s a business idea: cheaply manufacture similar vessels without the Norwegian water, enscribe something catchy on the side (Boss? Sure there’s no copyright issues there) and then sell them at, say, $1 a pop. Based on how many Voss bottles I’ve seen sitting around on office desks, you should make a killing.
Milking the quest for beauty
I could probably have done this with any number of soaps, shampoos and (especially) shaving products but as I walked down the medicinal aisle at the supermarket recently, my eyes were drawn immediately to Milk Face Wash and Scrub: Nori & Spirulina Extract, Walnut Shell, Vitamin E, Rosemary and Mint. Any product that combines seaweed and algae with a before-dinner snack and seasoning for a hearty winter’s lamb roast is good by me, so I happily handed over my $16.39 for 150mL. Three weeks later I can tell you the skin on my face doesn’t feel a day over 37. Which is fantastic really, because I don’t actually turn that age for another month-and-a-half.
Rustic, smushtic
It’s a charming word “rustic”. And I’d imagine it’s absolutely indispensible if you’re trying to sell your country farmhouse. But I’d probably err on the side of caution when it comes to using it in the names of products on supermarket shelves. In the case of LaZuppa’s Rustic Vegetables With Beans, I’d query to what degree people might view packet soup as “having the characteristics of country life”. And in the case of Abbott’s Village Bakery Rustic White, I’d be concerned consumers might find some correlation to another of rustic’s definitions: “made of untrimmed branches or rough timber”. In both instances, I’d be worried shoppers might simply think I’d been using a thesaurus to try to make my products sound more upmarket. But maybe that’s just me.
The Shapes of things to come
I’ve long been a champion of the Savoury Shape: tasty, decidely unposh (not even a specific flavour, let alone a location) and suitable for any hour of the day or night. Now, however, the reputation built up over all those years of solid service is being theatened by a recent addition to the “Shape range” – Shapes Footy Fever BBQ Chicken Wings. I spent a good six or seven minutes looking over a box of these a couple of weeks back, trying unsuccessfully to find any discernible connection to the AFL (or another footy code for that matter). If I didn’t know better, I’d suggest the manufacturers had decided to paint a big red generic football on the packaging and go oblong with their Shape(s), on the probablility that footy fans are so desperate for any fix of their chosen sport that they will just buy anything with even a tenuous link to it.
A load of balls
Not technically a supermarket product but I’ve recently been fortunate enough to become acquainted with Srixon Q Star golf balls – or, to be more accurate, the box in which they are packaged. I quote directly: “Proprietary, large, highly resilient and soft Energetic Gradient Growth core. This technology is the engine of the ball”. When someone who writes for a living can’t make out what you are trying to promise, it’s a fair bet you’ve overdone the jargon. Mind you, if Srixon want to sling me a few dozen, I’ll happily spend the next month or so losing them in lakes and bushland, trying to figure it all out.
Keeping abreast of the latest products
Not really on topic but in the unhealthy amount of time I spent in supermarkets researching products for this story, I happened upon frozen goods named Breast Pops and Breast Munchies. Just too purilely amusing not to share really.