Meet Lays' farmers: from the land of accidental satire
May I refer your attention HERE....
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=132643
This article presents how much Lays wants you to get to know its farmers, and how much of a REAL product Lays offers, and to do so without troubling you, they're going to bring a model of a REAL potato farm to Times Square. This continues their "get to know our farmers" world tour of the past year or so. See, Lays has joined the Real Food revolution, and they want you to be a part of it.
Or, at least, if you're into that, they want to market to you.
No disrespect to Lays intended here- potato chips at least are generally made with few ingredients, and (hopefully) Lays buys most or all of its potatoes in America (and, hence, employs American farmers). But to me, this sounds like an Onion article where the humor lies in how much a bunch of brand managers don't understand their brand, and REALLY don't understand their core consumers.
The article stems from MediaPost, which is certainly more a B2B rag than a zeitgeist tapping teen-angst mag. But the article quotes not a farmer committed to getting the word out, not a grocer getting good products in front of people, but rather it goes right behind the green curtain and quotes the Lays brand manager, Linda Bethea, cunningly doling out industry-speak. That's keeping it Real (tm), people.
But now may I please point you HERE....
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fritolay-angrily-introduces-line-of-healthy-snacks,2082/
That's an ACTUAL onion article that satirizes how the very company in question might give in to the Real Food/Green generation forces, though perhaps a bit more grumpily than Linda Bethea. Truly, life DOES imitate art.
I heartily doubt that 99% of Lays' customers care about any of this. They want a good snack. But clearly Lays wants to be ahead of the curve with the next generation. I tip my hat to you, Lays team- you're doing a bang-up job copying the companies that in total make up about 5% of your competition.
Frankly, given Lays' success and distribution, were they to adopt clean growing practices and dial back the additives, that'd be a HUGE win-win for us all: better food for people that need it, a better company that's already building on huge successes. One can only hope. Now I gotta go find me some Sproutitos....
-Peeled Skinny