Bad Shreddie!

First of all, who cares? But since I can’t seem to escape the never ending barrage of commercials, billboards and adverts from Shreddies, I feel it is my duty to comment. I am also putting Post on notice, that while your ad rings through my ears and keeps your product top of mind, I will never eat another Shreddie!

Diamond shaped Shreddies? Really? That is the best you can come up with? I am not sure if you deal with an outside agency or have an in house creative team, but I need to tell you that you have an intellectual thief in your midst! If the idea was original, I would concede that it was cute.

However, turn your dial back to 1996 when the folks at Tetley Tea wowed us with the introduction of their round tea bag. It made no difference to the taste (technically there is more surface area, but tea bags really are the hot dogs of tea and are pretty much crap anyway) but riding high on the success of a similar introduction in Britain in 1989, we were bombarded with images of square tea bags having the corners shaved off, becoming round.

Then, and quite cleverly, good old Red Rose countered with a brilliant ad of turning their square tea bag on its tip, making it diamond shaped. Sound familiar Mr. Shreddie? Or should I say Mr. P. (The P is for plagiarism just so you know). Apparently the poor Red Rose folks didn’t have Shreddie money at their disposal and their ad never made it out of the print medium.

But shame on you Shreddie people! You weren’t happy with ‘stays crunchy in milk’ or ‘100% whole grain’. What about the party mix angle? I think you can do better. I know you have likely spent a good deal on this campaign, but I ask that you think of the good name of the Shreddie and come up with something original!