View From The Sky: Pop-Tart Week A Crying Shame
Jill Skylab wraps up the first annual North American Pop-Tart Week.
To get where I’ve been in the industry as a woman, you can’t mince words. So let’s not slice or dice and just say it: Pop-Tart week was a manager’s worse nightmare, and a failure on so many fronts. When I took this job as a Brand Messaging Analyst/Acting Assistant Director of Branding at Snack You Silly, I was expecting a fresh perspective on an industry I had loved so much from the inside. Instead, my first assignment was sorting through the mess as Kellogg’s became a screaming lobster in the media’s pot of hot water.
You may have noticed SYS’s decision to stop posting new Pop-Tart themed content after Wednesday, and even this, in my opinion, was late. Although we had over six hundred Pop-Tart reviews ready to post, we decided to pull the plug after Kellogg’s unexpected announcement of a new flavor, Saltine Pop-Tarts. Kellogg’s press conference (which had an exorbitant budget of $3.8 million) was stiff and unwieldy, but bombs like the repulsive new flavors and regressive business models were way too much for everyone’s taste.
So where did Kellogg’s go wrong? Well, for one thing, their ambitious platform way out-paced current demand and cost markets for the modern snack industry. The Saltine Pop-Tart might be projected on a “ten year plan,” but even gelatin has a life span. It’s a shame that such an anticipated week disappointed so many, and now all we can do is quietly pick up the pieces. Pop-Tarts are still one of the continent’s greatest creations, and it’s up to the consumer to hold on tight in the upcoming years.
-Jill Skylab
