Spam? I'd rather eat dog food

Above: Ted. A dog who prefers crisps to Spam



How hungry would you have to be before you tucked into a bowl of dog food? What about a tin of Spam? John Bohannon, Robin Goldstein and Alexis Herschkowitsch carried out an experiment to see if people could tell the difference between dog food and pâté based purely on taste. In a double blind taste test, volunteers were presented with five dishes all prepared in a food mixer to have the same consistency, chilled and then served with a parsley garnish and a side of crackers. The five dishes were organic dog food, duck liver mousse, supermarket liverwurst, pork liver pâté and good old Spam.

Despite the participants consistently rating the dog food as having the worst taste, Bohannon et al found that they were no better at identifying the dog food than someone simply guessing. They suggested that people were so poor at predicting which dish was the dog food because they had been primed to expect dog food to taste better than it does. In other words, the worst tasting dish wouldn’t be the dog food. This is a good example of the power of suggestion, a corner stone of successful advertising.

Perhaps even more surprising though was that the aggregate ranking of dog food and Spam showed no statistical significance. So how does a product for which people show no significant preference for over dog food sell over 7 billion units across 41 countries? That’s the power of a strong brand.

Link to Bohannon et al's experiment

Reality TV hits a new low

As if being crap and having your staff constantly walk out on strike wasn't bad enough, the Post Office seems intent on killing itself with its new TV advertising campaign. Now, when I'm not thinking the Post Office provides a service that is akin to something that fell out of a dog's behind, I'm probably queuing for an interminably long time in some poorly laid out building that has at least twice as many service windows as people willing or able to serve, and have not only lost the ability to think but also the will to live. This whole psychic and spiritual collapse is only enhanced by the Post Office's insistence on decorating their buildings a la mode du World War II. So imagine my delight at seeing the money the Post Office extort from us, the public, for such terrible service is being spent on a TV advertising campaign that depicts the Post Office as an organisation staffed by half whits. Now hats off to the production team: the casting is superb (I doubt there's a collective full whit amongst the lot of them), the sets have any hope of life leaving my soul at the sight of those biege-cum-pea-green-cum-not-really-a-colour-more-a-feeling-of nausea walls. But it gets better! The People's Post Office (clearly that World War II decor is having an effect on the creative team to come up with such an inspirational line as that) is a place where Z-list celebs go to buy their TV licence, stamps, and probably to lose the will to live just like the rest of us. These celebs are so well known that the Post Office 'staff' have to announce who they are, like some piss poor impressionist at a working men's club who begins his impersonations with 'Ay up, I'm Frank Bruno. Know what I mean 'Arry?'. Only in this case we've got Wendy Richards, Bill 'I'm not really difficult' Oddie, and Boy's Life or West Zone (I'm not sure which, but I do know it's not that other collection of middle aged men who once upon a time were known as Take That because they're starring in some pretty frightening POS in Marks and Spencer).

An intellectual might call this paradoxical intention. Depict the Post Office as an anachronism run by morons and the morons who really run it might actually buck their ideas up. I'd call it the beginning of the end. It only serves to remind me that my local courier will deliver a box as big as you like anywhere in the country the next day for only £10. They've never let us down. The Post Office, on the other hand, charged £10-95 to deliver a CD before 9-00am the next day. Guaranteed. Only it didn't show up. Twice.


With these new ads it seems that the message is finally getting through and they are ready to stand up and admit it. The Post Office is rubbish. Well done, Royal Mail. You've finally got something right.