Basic Products - Now with added pointlessness!

Have you noticed recently that every single basic product we know and use is trying to spice itself up? Walking through the supermarket I realised that basic everyday products that we all know and use like butter, milk, flour, bread and so on are constantly trying to make themselves stand out amongst the competition. My main thought was – is there really a competition? When I choose one of these boring necessary items I usually grab the one that is either closest to me (as grocery shopping is a trying bore and stuffing as much as I can in as little time as possible is ideal in this situation) or I take the one that is the cheapest which is usually indicated by an ENORMOUS label which reads “ON SPECIAL!! LIKE OMFG WOW!”. It gets me in.

Anyway these products seem to be in a sales race... Yeah I understand that with other products like... errr... soft drinks and ice cream. There are different flavours, different varieties and everybody likes different drinks and desserts. Different milks though? Butters? Is anyone really hell bent on forever buying one brand of butter and NEVER trying anything else? I mean if you were the head of the “Grandma’s Butter” company you probably would but regular joes? I don’t think so.

So here’s my point (I knew I’d get there eventually) you look now and there’s butter with vegetable oil or butter with no oil or butter with less fat, butter with more fat, butter with in the middle amounts of fat, fatty ass fat butter, butter with nutmeg, butter with Cajun spices, butter with pesto, butter with cognac, butter with butter, butter upside down and butter al fresco. Then each one comes in four different sizes – and that’s just one brand! Each butter manufacturer comes up with their own forty different varieties. It’s madness. Now there is a butter aisle rather than a section. Not to mention the space in your own fridge should you purchase one of each. Why the need to tart butter up? I mean I go to use a basic product like butter on my toast, in cooking and greasing various things (oo-err)  – do I really need lemon myrtle infused butter for this? Who wants their traditional pancakes to taste like fish oil?  

If I were to market these types of products I’d at least make them interesting. “Magic Butter – churned by semi-attractive goblins”. Now that’s what I’m talking about. If you’re going to beat the market you’re going to have to do better than “Butter – now with more cow!” and try “Butter with vampire blood – makes you lives forever” or “Butter with extract of Johnny Depp – everyone wants a lil Johnny in them”. These are things I would buy. I should probably send this to butter company and let them pay me a ridiculous amount of money for my ideas.

Chances are they’ll read my comments and go where every other product on this earth has gone – sex. Soon you’ll be walking down the dairy aisle and you’ll have to shield your child’s eyes from the porn on every packet. Naked women covered in butter. Actually... maybe I would buy that. It would be hilarious.