To despise twee food packaging which talks about itself in the first person?

[Esker]

Just opened a packet of Ella's Kitchen baby rice and it says the following things about itself:

"I'm organic" (fair enough, I suppose)

On the back: 'Hello. I'm an organic banana, maize and quinoa baby rice. I'm super scrummy at any time of day.'

Instructions: 'Store me in a cool, dark place. I'm best used within 28 days of opening me.'

I blame Innocent smoothies, as they are the first company I recall doing this.

Why this cutesy, twee, first-person chat? AIBU to find it patronising and beyond irritating? Or am I just a grumpy killjoy? I get that their marketing concept is to suggest that they are in some way addressing the babies who will consume the product, but why does this need to follow through to storage instructions and nutritional info on the back of the packet?

Wackaging yep that's the one. I read an article on it once. I did my dissertation on linguistic devices in adverts, this wasn't around then but it fascinates me.

It's a similar 'voice' to the annoying 'monologue' blogs all over social media, usually those chilled out, informal, 'hey it's ok you do that completely normal parenting thing, be empowered by it, you don't have to explain yourself to anyone' bullshit. Written like proper self help manuals when they're actually just obvious crap that everyone knows anyway.

I think it all boils down to too much 'airtime'. We just have so much of everything all the time the quality is so diluted and the competition is so fierce they have to fight for our attention. Too many channels has made TV awful, too much social media has made everyone a blogger, nothing new or interesting is ever said on these things that circulate; and a thousand different versions of every item you can possibly want to buy means they are literally clambering for our £££ in any way possible.

I hate it too.

See also shampoos and shower gels that say things like 'drench your locks', 'imagine hundreds of tiny kangaroos gently caressing your hair into beautiful bouncy wonderfulness', 'crammed with 8 billion mint leaves', or have rubbish poems about drifting off on a bed of lilies or some other such nonsense.

This irritates me too. All the twee crap on Puccinos branding inexplicably gives me the rage as well. Although I do have a slight soft spot for ASDAs "try me love me" product guarantee. It goes on to talk about "this product" and redeems itself.

YANBU, I hate that kind of thing generally.

Saw some ‘biccies’ advertised the other day. Grim.

Holland and barret have done this with their food range.
.
Drives me bonkers.
You're figs !
Not fucking fabulous fruitilicous fanny farting figs!

Full disclosure, I work in marketing. And, annoying as it is, this stuff works. It gives the brand a clearer voice/personality and people connect with it more.

However, I agree the innocent rip offs in particular are getting stale. When innocent did it first, 10 years ago, it was fresh and cute and fun. It quickly became less so, just as a range of brands jumped on the cutesy bandwagon.

However, I absolutely love the Aussie tone of voice (in ref to the shampoo point above). It's sparky and distinctive.

the packaging equivalent of someone saying 'I'm mad, me'

This made me snort. Beautifully expressed

I am processed capitalist food, and I am your friend. Buy me.

But processed capitalist food wants to know about meeee, WonderfulWomenRock! "Hi, I am banana flavoured milk, but let's talk about YOU." Surely worth £2 for a little bottle.

MontanaSkies "I hate the feeling that I'm paying more to be talked down to by a mashed banana" - My thoughts exactly!

Funny how it only works for some products... I can't imagine the Tommy Tippee "I love eating up shit" nappy bin.

It's sparky and distinctive bollocks, it is!

There are so many brands at it, that there is nothing sparky and distinctive about it, it is stale and unoriginal. It's a sea of marketing nonsense intended to separate a fool and his money. I actively avoid this kind of crap and I am not alone. Marketeers need to start rethinking this strategy

Aussie sell a truckload of shampoo though

And actually, people hating it isn't an issue. Rousing strong feelings (and that will include negative as well as positive) is usually more effective as a strategy than evoking a whole lot of meh.

I don't mind so much with childrens food. Food for me - I don't want it to be my friend, I just want tto eat or drink it.

I do like Innocent though- Innocent bubbles is lovely and if I want something fizzy and nice (ie no artificial sweetners) has less sugar than the other options.

It's all a slippery slope to this:

stop looking at my bottom

sparklingbrook
sorry but that has me

I want to know if anyone ever actually phones the fucking banana phone at fucking Innocent Towers for A Chat.

Or who actually goes to the websites that these brands have created to Hang Out.

All I can picture in my head now is Fun Media from W1A grimly trawling for new ideas whilst pretending to enjoy themselves, and stopping for silent discos.

Although Stop Looking At My Bottom made me laugh.

I don't drink those Innocent smoothies because they put fucking banana in EVERYTHING. Which is like letting off a massive stinky fart off at a small party - it doesn't matter what else is going on the banana/fart is going to dominate the smoothie/room.

I did get some free samples of Innocent Smoothies that were banana free once and they were very nice too, but I have never seen them on sale.

Hah. I went for a job once at the company that created the voice for Innocent. I dared to say that the twee 'I'm your best fwend' voice was starting to date and grate a bit now and it would be good to have some products that didn't whimsically say 'hello' to their customers but treated them like adults.
I didn't get the job. Now I work for companies that find the cutesy wootsieness of Innocent copycat branding irritating too.

Yanbu. We take the piss out if Ella's alot here.

Tommy Tippee "I love eating up shit" nappy bin

I think Vax should rebrand their steam mops as "I'm hot and wet and love getting dirty"

I think Innocent could get away with it when they were a bunch of independents in a unit in West London. Now that they are a division of coke, not so much.

wackaging

I'm not usually one to pull people up on spelling but the word must surely be wankaging

Bunsters popular "Shit The Bed" sauce is now available in the UK. Heat 12/10

Bet it's not as hot as Bernie Bumm Rim Ripper

I enjoy the anthropomorphism of inanimate objects. I'm not sure why. I also like it when buses say 'sorry, I'm not in service'.

@MilesJuppIsMyBitch my younger DB and his friends used to call the number on innocent smoothies quite frequently, they got to know one of the phone operators quite well, and used to ask for her by name and she invited them all down for a tour of fruit towers, and they got some free stuff. So there are people who call up for a chat!

I don't mind the silly chat on innocent cartons, I had them as a child and saw the appeal then so I won't let it annoy me too much now. All the other brands copying it aren't doing it as well and it is therefore quite annoying.

Miles I think Dave Gorman phoned the banana phone once, on his show Modern Life Is Good ish.