Friday, December 25, 2015

Marketing Greek Yogurt

Have you ever thought about how much Greek Yogurt packaging tells us about humans? Oh dear, what am I going to go on about now? Time for a good Boxing Day froth, me thinks.

Somewhere along the way, "pot set" yogurt became fashionable. "Pot set" yogurt is "is allowed to set in the pot in which it was sold, so has a firmer texture than other yogurts". This also allows for more precise control over the fermentation process, and in theory, a better probiotic content. Always willing to sell their soul to the highest bidder, marketers jumped on this and starting labeling all manner of yogurts (and likely dish detergents as well) as "pot set".

More recently, "Greek yogurt" has become all the rage. Greek yogurt is yogurt "which has been strained to remove its whey, resulting in a relatively thick consistency". Almost all of the recent growth in the yogurt market has been in strained yogurts. Marketer: "Greek is popular, Greek sells, let's say our yogurt is Greek so we sell more". Sadly, "there is no legal definition of Greek yogurt, and yogurt thickened with thickening agents may also be sold as 'Greek yogurt'", so they have tacked on the "Greek" label to anything white, potentially edible, and thicker than distilled water.

So, one day, Yogurt Marketer, Senior Grade, thinks to herself "Hmm ... pot set yogurt is good, Greek yogurt is even better. Now pot set Greek yogurt would be a killer product!"

And thus, we now are inundated with pot set Greek yogurt. I can't help wondering how they are straining yogurt that is set in the container it is sold in. Maybe they set it in a container, empty it out, strain it, and put it back in the container? That would definitely be disingenuous and not in the spirit of the definition even if it was within the letter, but they don't do that – it is obvious by looking at the "pot set Greek yogurt" that it is not strained. So, basically, they are lying to us. I trust you are not surprised.

Just to be clear: you can't have pot set Greek yogurt. You can't strain yogurt before it is yogurt, and you can't strain it after it is set in the pot it will be sold in. It can be one or the other, but not both.

Marketers may be evil, but they aren't stupid. If putting these labels on the containers didn't sell more product, they wouldn't put them there. So yogurt makers are selling more yogurt because they are making nonsensical claims on the containers.

Now I can write off marketers as a genetically inferior group of sociopaths. But what about the people who are influenced by these labels? Do they think "Wow, pot set and Greek, how great is that? Let's buy a 2kg tub instead our usual 1kg!" Maybe these are sort of people impressed by "gluten free" apples? What if they slapped on a "No herbicides were harmed in the manufacturing of this yogurt" label on? Would that impress the yogurt shoppers too?

What does it mean that people are so easily fooled/manipulated? I suppose it isn't much different than someone snapping up a new point and shoot camera with a 550 Gigapixels sensor – yeah, good luck with your low light shots with that one mate. When people are so easily tricked by a ploy your average cricket would see right through, what happens when folk are faced with a complicated decision? Like what politician to vote for. Oh, that's right, I guess I already know the answer to that one.

It will be obvious to my readers (both of you) by now that I'm always up for a good froth. But getting all spun up over yogurt labeling? You're thinking that perhaps I need to find a hobby or two, aren't you? Even S, who is usually totally into a froth over just about anything, thinks I need to up my meds this time. This marketing BS annoys me for a couple reasons: 1) it insults my intelligence to have to buy "pot set Greek yogurt" because there is no alternative, and 2) consumers aren't taking even a couple seconds to think about what they are buying, so we are all eating some crappy yogurt thickened with shredded old shoe leather instead of some decent strained yogurt.

I'd like to be able cruise through an unfamiliar town, drop into Woolies, and pick up some decent Greek yogurt. But no, I have take what I can get, and join the queue of all the other shoppers who are stoked to have picked up their 2kg tub of pot set Greek yogurt.