Short Cuts: Free (X-TREME) Marketing Solutions for Healthy Products I Like

Wherein I offer my considerable marketing skills, for free, to companies whose stuff I like.

So one of the obvious downsides of being "in the P-Zone" (on high doses of the corticosteroid prednisone) is that it turns your metabolism into a one-way makeover machine that transforms dowdy carbohydrate into glamorous back fat.  It also throws off your sodium/potassium levels so that any excess (significantly less than what most people eat daily) intake of salt gives you moon-face, which is the technical medical term for what happens when your cheeks and neck puff up until they are shaped like a butt, creating the impression that your face is mooning the world.  Science fact.

In a (thus far mostly successful) attempt to avoid these outcomes, I've had to be really careful about what I eat.  I read labels now, which has made me basically Mr. Wizard at simple multiplication (40 calories per portion times 17 portions per can equals nice try, Kraft Foods Inc.) and also led me to try products that I probably would never have looked at before.  Some of them have turned out to be really great and helpful, so it bothered me a little that, had I not been put on a really unusual drug regimen, I never would have tried them.  I'm guessing that because so much effort is going into the quality of the product, these small companies just don't have the money to throw towards an advertising and marketing team that really knows what the kids want these days.  Using a combination of my considerable savvy and blingeez, I've generated new campaign ideas for a few of them.


Product the First:  Guapo Sauce a.k.a "Our Lord and Flavior"

Now joined by equally rocking Fresco Sauce (right), and only-slightly-less-rocking-but-I-think-would-make-a-really-great-grill-marinade-or-rub Bravo Sauce (left), Guapo Sauce has been my solution to being basically unable to flavor anything without a serious sodium spike from salt or dealing with the unfortunate fat-to-flavor ratio of most non-salty condiments and sauces.  The stuff works as a marinade, grill sauce, dipping sauce, wrap spread, salad dressing, omelette-flavoring... everything.  The day that I start eating bread again I already have a date with a turkey BLT just slathered in it.  Unfortunately, I've only found it in Whole Foods (tragically placed in the tortilla chip section instead of the sauce section, as if you're supposed to put it on chips instead of absolutely everything) and the advertising angle on their website doesn't really catch the eye.  "Artisinal?"  Well, that's nice but it doesn't have quite the same hook as "SPICESATIONAL" or "TASTESPLOSIVE", both of which I think you'll agree would make you more likely to buy.  We're not Martha Stewart, here.  "Mexican?"  While true, and credit to the culture to which it is due, that suggests a very limited set of culinary uses.  I'd recommend expanding the scope from "Mexican" to "Intergalactic."

Guapo:  TASTESPLOSIVE INTERGALACTIC SAUCE.  We're halfway there.

Now we just need a tag-line, a slogan that will make people remember the brand.  I've tossed around a few ideas.

The first:
Guapo Sauce: Suck it, Ketchup.
While I like the assertiveness of this approach, and the fact that it effectively announces the presence of a new sherriff in taste-town fixing to upend the old tomato-paste regime, I fear to use it.  Everyone knows the Ketchup lobby in this country is obscenely powerful, and I don't want my freelance efforts to put Guapo Sauce on the Condiment Terrorist Watch List.

The second:
Guapo Sauce: Kick your tastebuds in the mouth!
This one I felt might drift a little too far from "assertive" to "aggressive", and while it suitably describes the intensity of the taste experience, I decided it wouldn't be smart to have people associate the product with violence being done to their face.

Finally I settled on a third slogan that I really think captures the essence of the the Guapo Sauce line of products, and as such have produced some new campaign imagery for their website.  With great pleasure, I unveil:

Royalties, please.

 Product the Second: House Tofu Shirataki Noodles, a.k.a. Noodles Made of Air, Basically

Here's the thing: pasta is really, really good.  Unfortunately, it's also pretty much the worst thing someone on prednisone could put in their body.  After trying the tactic of extremely small portions of brown rice or whole wheat pasta (the brown rice pasta is better, if you cook it right), I was basically like "Not worth it.  Screw spaghetti, I'm having 'and meatballs' for dinner tonight."  I tried spaghetti squash, which tastes pretty much like spaghetti if you close your eyes and use your imagination and are a severely-taste-handicapped third-degree oral burn victim.  Then a friend of mine suggested tofu shirataki noodles with the dubious recommendation "Hungry Girl loves them!"  Assuming that she was referring to herself in the third person as "Hungry Girl," in a fit of starvation-induced mania, I was a little put off of trying them for awhile.  Turns out, Hungry Girl is a dieting(?) website(?) for the ladies (I didn't do much research on this), and their endorsement is even printed on the package for the House Foods brand of Tofu Shirataki noodles.

"Fine, I'll try them," I thought, even though there's a part of me that felt a sneaking suspicion that buying a Hungry Girl-endorsed product was the grocery equivalent of reaching the checkout at Target with an Ani CD in one hand and a Beautiful Regrets(R) scrapbooking kit in the other.  Worth It.

The success of these noodles isn't really in the flavor or the texture - the flavor is pretty much just there, the texture is less like spaghetti and more like ramen noodles but is perfectly serviceable for pretty much any kind of pasta dish you'd usually make with wheat or rice noodles.  The success of tofu shirataki noodles is in the sheer volume that you can consume for a tiny caloric cost.  I'm assured these things are made of tofu and yam flour, but I'm pretty sure they're made of air, dreams, and unicorn burps.  You can eat an entire package (2 servings, according to the label) for 40 calories, almost no carbs, and a wee protein bonus to boot.  You could pretty much fill up a large salad serving bowl to the brim and still be under 500 calories for a meal.  I'm pretty sure that, in neglecting to focus on this aspect of their product, House Foods is losing a considerable opportunity of appealing to two important demographics: "On a Dare" eaters and Competitive Eaters who want to stay svelte.  Also, while the Hungry Girl endorsement gets them the demographic that is already in-the-know, I think it would be more productive to say their product is endorsed by "That Skinny Girl Who Just Horsed That Whole Plate Down Holy Crap Where Does She Even Put That" since that's basically the kind of freedom it affords.

The image campaign for this product remains in process, but here's a rough draft:

I think we're off to a great start.