Meat marketing...

Decades ago, when I was a kid growing up in Saskatchewan, I remember staring out the rear passenger window of my family's station wagon, watching the city roll by. The drive downtown was never very exciting, but this time it was different. There, high above the side of the road, a blazing white rectangle of light appeared, glowing in the evening dusk. I burst out laughing. Afterward, I looked for that sign every time we drove by.



Meat marketing is big, big, big business, but I cannot think of a single meat marketing strategy that rivals the brilliance of the (tragically short-lived) "Pork. The one you love." campaign. To this day, it is the only billboard that I can actually remember. You would think that, with all the money that goes into pork and beef and poultry councils, the industry could come up with another genius campaign.

Well, I think they finally have. This afternoon, Fawn went to buy some pork tenderloin from a local grocery store and discovered this little marketing gem:

Guaranteed Reduced Quality

Ingenious! Don't you just love to eat meat with "Guaranteed Reduced Quality"? I know I do. Who wants to eat that hoity-toity good meat when you can have the guaranteed not-as-good meat?

Who says there isn't truth in advertising? Everyone wins, really. The meat producers get to sell off their sub-standard meat, and the consumers are happy that their meat is guaranteed, no matter what the guarantee is. Maple Leaf Foods could learn a lesson from this.

My faith in the meat marketing industry has been restored.