Welcome to the first Shelf Life of 2012, with an innovative new feature – the takeout. This is not, as my Scottish friends might assume, a voucher for a Chinese takeaway, but a simple summary of the marketing point behind each post.
Of course when I say ‘point’ I really mean ‘point of view’, since these are only my thoughts, albeit infused with the experience of too many years to mention. Feel free to disagree or support them by leaving a comment.
The fact is that the supermarket shelf is a fantastic treasure trove of information, populated as it is by the fruits of some very clever (and some less clever) thinking, all competing to make the right story appear, in an instant, in the mind of the consumer.
I love this description of the place I call home from The Total Package: ‘the supermarket is as visually dense, if not as beautiful, as a Gothic cathedral, and as predatory as a tropical rainforest.’