A trivial item on food labels, or something so broad and all-encompassing that a company doesn’t even notice it anymore, can prompt discussion, refutation and a challenge later on in the product’s lifespan. When an event like that happens, don’t take it lightly. A lot can depend on the way your audience remembers your products, and the label is in many ways crucial to their identity.
The “Double-Stuf” brand of Oreos is a pretty well-known variant on the seemingly ubiquitous sandwich cookie, but even though one could dismiss the name as not being intended as literal, there still appears to be some shock in the news that those cookies claiming “double” aren’t accurate from a strictly mathematical perspective.
CNN reports that Dan Anderson gave his students the challenge to figure out the creme content of different sizes of Oreos by taking them apart and weighing them. In the process, they discovered that so-called “double” cookies actually possessed 1.86 times creme, 14 percent less than twice the standard brand’s amount.
Even though this project has shattered the myth and gained a startling amount of media attention, the official response, from an unnamed spokesperson to Good Morning America, is that the name does not lie.
“While I’m not familiar with what was done in the classroom setting, I can confirm for you that our recipe for the Oreo Double Stuf Cookie has double the Stuf, or creme filling, when compared with our base, or original Oreo cookie,” this person said.
Making labels that simply display the name of a product may seem simple enough, but it’s likely that this story will stick in the minds of consumers for some time, due to appreciation of the traditional brand.
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