 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Wired.com Daylight Savings article | Main | Next: Caution children sign
March 12, 2007 12:03 AM
Broken: (Just for Fun) Corn Pops cereal box description
Mark Crummet points out:
Kellogg's Corn Pops currently has a front-of-box description containing the text "Big Yellow Taste," which made me do a double-take. I'm not sure colors have a taste. [Except maybe for veal. Hmm. No, I was thinking of "teal." -mh]
Or maybe it's targeted at people with synesthesia - the condition of experiencing color as taste. So next year's box will boast, "Now even yellower!"
From the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
I went down to the Chelsea drugstore / To get your prescription filled / I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy / And man, did he look pretty ill / We decided that we would have a soda / My favorite flavor, cherry red.
:-)
And, for your further amusement, from "The Sound of Music," the morning just after Maria has fled the children and the Captain to return to the convent:
CAPTAIN ... What have we got here?
BARONESS Pink lemonade.
MAX Laced with, uh, lemonade.
The Captain shudders.
...
CAPTAIN ... I think I'm
brave enough to try some of that.
...
BARONESS Not too sweet, not too sour.
MAX Just too, um, pink.
:-)
In all seriousness, I wish I had synesthesia. I would welcome the chance to experience sensation in a new way.
However, I do not think we can declare this broken until a person with synesthesia can evaluate Kellogg's claims. Until then, this is only 'unusual'
Technically, synesthesia would be the opposite: perceiving tastes as colors. Or sound, ideas, people, or any other thing, really. One of my ex-girlfriends was a synesthesian. Then again, I still think she's just crazy.
-Evan
"How do you puff a crunch?"
Actually, this is valid (well, in practice if not grammatically).
Food is tested for many qualities, only some of which are about taste. Two distinct qualities 'crispiness' (how it breaks in the mouth - like a potato chip) and 'crunchiness' (how it crumbles - like granola). If the food were not puffed, it would be crunchy. To make it crispy, it has to be light, and filled with air.
My favorite example of this sort of thing is Cheez-It Twisterz baked cheese snacks with the Hot Wings & Cheesy Blue flavor. I like how this doesn't describe the cheese content of these things, only their blueness.
Evanseeds: Actually, synaesthesia is when a stimulus to any sense triggers a different sensation; it can occur between any two senses. So it could be percieving tastes as colors, colors as tastes, sounds as tactile, touch as scent, etc. One of the most common forms of synaesthesia, called "grapheme-color synaesthesia," is the perception that individual letters and numbers are tinged with colors. For example, P's might been seen as yellow and R's as orange.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Wired.com Daylight Savings article | Main | Next: Caution children sign
Anyone have any Purple drink?
Posted by: LafinJack at March 12, 2007 01:18 AM