The Un-Boring Potato: Nutritious, Cheap, and a Beautiful Sight!
Make the potato – wholesome, delicious, versatile, cheap – into the villain. Make Kraft’s Stove Top – nutritionally devoid, scary sugary chemical concoction – into the hero and YOU could win a $100 gift card!!!
C’mon bloggers, sell your soul for a chance to win a measly $100! It’s fun! People will love you for bashing affordable, healthy food. Like the email below says, it’s satire. Like The Onion, but without a conscience!
What, you don’t feel like joining in to villanize healthy food and promote crap? That’s not your style?
In that case, how about writing a post like this one and submitting it to Tecnorati’s contest.
And you can always let Stove Top know how you feel about their campaign on Facebook.
FYI – here’s the email “call to action” I received today:
Dear Liz Snyder,Are you ready to show that STOVE TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix “tops” the
potato?
STOVE TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix is challenging families to escape the
same old, boring potato routine through a contest held by Technorati
Media – you could win a $100 American Express gift card!What We Want You to Write About
We’re inviting the blogosphere to participate in a contest to create
humorous posts about how potatoes are a boring alternative to STOVE
TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix. By providing creative, funny and memorable
content that takes a jab at potatoes as “boring,” we want to encourage
families to consider STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix as an everyday and
easy-to-make side dish alternative to instant potatoes. STOVE TOP
Stuffing Mix is so “un-boring” it’s the “un-potato!”With its everyday meal appeal, delicious taste and easy prep, STOVE
TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix is the perfect side dish solution that
complements meat and vegetables alike. Each serving from the
convenient STOVE TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix flex canister takes just
two minutes to prepare in the microwave no extra pots or dishes to
wash. The STOVE TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix canister is re-sealable, so
you can make as little or as much as you need, as quickly as you need
it.Examples:
- An image and story of talk show host potato that has put its guests
to sleep- An image and story of a potato totally underdressed in it’s plain
old skin for an event- Showcase kids talking about how boring potatoes are and how they
love STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix- Showcase how potatoes don’t cut it – they’re so worthless to eat -
doorstoppers, brick-fixes (spoof on home entertainment show sponsored
by Stove Top)Seriously, the more creative your posts and images are (as well as
appropriate and non-offensive) the better! If it helps, think of the
type of humor found in The Onion (http://www.theonion.com) and
incorporate that style of comedy into your story.All you need is your sense of humor (and we know bloggers have the
best sense of humor in the world)!Post Requirements For Contest
- At least 200 words with your “story” about the STOVE TOP Stuffing
Mix being the “HERO” over th BORING POTATO.- At least one image and/or video about your BORING POTATO or STOVE
TOP Stuffing Mix.- Include An outbound link to:
http://www.facebook.com/stovetop?sk=app_172727006112120 – mentioning
the STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix campaign.- Include the following tag in your post – #unpotatofest
- Post a minimum of one Facebook update, a tweet, or an upload to
YouTube (if applicable) to promote your post.- Video stories about your potato or STOVE TOP stuffing as the “hero”
are highly encouraged, though not required.- Submit your entry by 4/26/11 at: http://bit.ly/fX9q1c
Looking forward to your creativity and good luck!
Scott Lyon
Blogger Outreach Manager
Official Contest Rules:
http://technorati.com/stovetop-unpotato-contest
Hi Liz, I just read this post you sent on the comfood elist and I was amazed at this – in a disgusted way. It hurts my heart (and arteries) to see sodium-packed, boxed-meals pushing the natural, nutrient-dense vegetables to the side so that they can attempt an advertisement. Just like you, my jaw dropped when I read the post and was tempted to write about my disgust and frustration on their facebook wall, however I contained myself…. but still! I agree with you, the “unpotato” idea is one that exhibits the opposite of what should be advertised.
[...] and a peek at the press release in all its misguided glory, mosey on over to Liz Snyder’s blog I Eat Real after you’re finished [...]
On the one hand, this is shocking, but on the other hand it is such a blatant example of marketing trying to shape opinions in ways that benefit fodd industry profits at the expense of the consumer that it can be an excellent teaching tool. We know this sort of thing goes on all the time in many forms or marketing for many different types of products. It would be great for someone to write up a short, clear and compelling lesson around this that could help students in health programs see how many food corporations are trying to manipulate the way they think about food. Perhaps someone could create a short YouTube video that could go viral (maybe even on CNN iReport or something like that).
I got this email too and was floored. I also blogged about it today — only I didn’t name the company behind it because I didn’t want to sully my finger tips by typing their name. I gave a shout out to the potato people instead.
Thanks for standing up for blogger integrity. And real food.
Liz, Thanks for exposing this nonsense for real food folks, I linked to your post in my story on same.
One good thing has come from this: I found your blog. Keep fighting the good food fight.
Thank you for writing this! I’m still shaking my head at the boneheaded flack who thought up this one.
I’m yet another recipient of that unbelievable email from Technorati (and me a writer of a blog in praise of the potato!)
I blogged about it too (though I didn’t care to mention the name of the product or corporation in the post). It’s a truly sad reflection on much that is wrong with the food industry.
The bloggers who accepted this “challenge” for the HOPES of winning a gift card? In other words, they compromise their integrity and professionalism basically for free. It’s one thing to market a product via commercials or advertising, but to think sites that pose as “informative” would write about this crap truly makes the rest of us look bad.
I don’t begrudge anyone trying to earn some money from blogging. But this is “opportunity” is just a CHANCE to maybe possibly scramble to get a gift card. Wow, no wonder it’s so hard to make money blogging when so many folks are willing to work for free.
I do a number of product reviews on my blog, but I only review from companies that I either contact because I’m intrigued by their product OR companies that I am able to research closely enough to know they would be interesting to my readers. To think that there are bloggers who will do this FOR FREE (because if they don’t win, that is exactly what the amount of the payment they get will be…)
Hi Liz,
Scott here, the offending emailer. I’m sorry we offended you with the Un-potato contest promotion. The contest was intended to be a fun, tongue-in-cheek way to help Kraft promote Stove Top stuffing and their humorous ad campaign. The contest and the resulting blog posts are light and funny in nature and don’t feature any nutritional claims. Please know that we did not mean to malign potatoes or their food value in any way.
Obviously, we will remove you from future blogger outreach around packaged foods, but would welcome the chance to work with you on a program better aligned with your blog’s editorial and POV.
Lesson learned and best wishes,
Scott Lyon
Blogger Outreach Manager
Technorati Media
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your comment. But you see, it’s not the concept of satire or the maligning the potato itself that bothers me. It’s specifically this:
Showcase kids talking about how boring potatoes are and how they love STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix
It’s not just light and fun. When you try to turn families away from healthy, affordable food and toward nutritionally devoid more expensive alternatives? That is serious. I work primarily with parents in low income communities who are struggling to make ends meet, whose kids suffer a whole range of diet-related health problems. These problems are real. And they are caused by precisely this kind of marketing effort – where millions of advertising dollars are being spent trying to turn people away from the healthy foods they can afford.
My own research as a nutritional anthropologist painfully documents the real and detrimental effects that food marketing efforts have on children’s health. I’ve made it my life’s work to point out the insanity of advertising dollars’ ability to create a national eating disorder/disaster in this country. Excuse me if I lose my sense of humor when it comes to the peddling of packaged junk to kids. Excuse me for being outraged when asked to participate.
I hope your “lesson learned” is to not market junk food to families – but I suspect your lesson learned is in fact to avoid blogs like mine.
My best,
Liz
Bravo Liz! I grow real food (organic brown rice and almonds) and truly appreciate the work you are doing here on your blog. Thanks!
well this is sad because stove top is likely one of the better products, one I will actually buy, and it is the government that is supposed to regulates (and not just pollute) the food industry and it is supposed to be the people who regulate the government. we have ourselves to blame. including the potatoe people. i get rotten little green things at the store because they are greedy too.
Preach it, sister.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m sharing this on my Facebook and Twitter pages. This is totally unacceptable and yet another symptom of what is VERY wrong with the food industry in this country.
I saw an example of that yesterday on a blog…the blogger was trying to tie in a certain brand of maple syrup with Passover celebrations. If wasn’t real maple syrup, by the way.
This, from the people who created a commercial to spew the heresy that Velveeta is in some possible way better than actual cheese.
Get over it y’all. It’s all tongue and cheek — have a sense of humor…
Here’s something that tickles my sense of humor:
http://thebottleisawonderland.blogspot.com/2011/04/drink-97.html
Thanks, Liz! I thought the contest was absurd and I am glad to see I wasn’t the only one.
I too was floored by this email. I write about eating food, the kind that comes out of the ground not out of a box. And I didn’t even know what this product was (it may not even retail in Australia). And having googled it, I’m STILL not sure what it actually IS (it’s not right be terrified by something you are supposed to able to eat …).