An Open Letter to Candy, Inc. (Part III)

Flag Day (June 14th) is another holiday that I feel has great potential for growth. The themes could not be more simple. And because of this simplicity, I see strength. You've got the symbol of the flag and you've got red, white, and blue. Jelly beans could be sold in the red, white, and blue array as could M&M's. Little chocolate flags would be great (and just like the bullets for Memorial Day, the flags are scalable in size.) Dozens of candy bars could be repackaged with a flag-themed wrapper. It would be huge. And it's patriotic too.

In fact, I see Flag Day candy as part of a broader red, white, and blue campaign. This theme could extend from Flag Day to the Fourth of July. The displays and packages can all be reused for the 4th. And if there's still leftovers after both these holidays, ship all the candy to France the next week, because their colors are the same (but in the order bleu, blanc, rouge, of course) and their big nationalistic holiday is July 14th. And then if there's still candy left over... I don't know... I'm sure there's a big holiday in the UK, The Netherlands, or Australia where the candy could be sent.

---NOTE: Thanks to EW, who also thought candy on the 4th would be a great idea. Clearly this is going to be huge.---

An Open Letter to Candy, Inc. (Part II)

Though it seems unconventional, candy on Memorial Day could be the next big thing. The holiday (on May 28th this year) commemorates all those who served in American wars. And while I think little chocolate tombstones might be over the top, what about little candy bullets? It's easy to make jelly bean bullets and gummy bullets and chocolate bullets. You could very easily have multiple sizes (from little hand gun bullets to machine gun bullets, right on up to big chunks of chocolate the size of big mortars. )

Perhaps it's a little grotesque... but you could say the same for hunting for eggs on Easter. Plus our country already has a supposed military-industrial complex, I think the natural progression of this is the military-confectionary complex.

--On a sidenote, someone pointed out that while I alluded to candy-bare months stretching from May through October, May does have another holiday with some chocolate involved. However Mother's Day (on the 12th this year) includes only some of the population, notably not ME, which is probably why I forgot about it. Thank you for the input.

An Open Letter to Candy, Inc.

Dear Hershey's and M&M/Mars Product Managers,

I'm writing with genuine concern for your companies' long term economic well-being. Specifically, I'm worried about the cyclical nature of the candy business, most notably the seasonal downturn we've just entered now that Easter is over. I think we can all agree that the weeks from Halloween through Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter are pretty good to America's candy companies. You might say it's a treat for you and your shareholders. But as I'm sure you're aware there's a relative dearth of candy holidays coming up. Essentially, we're no longer in the sweet spot of the calendar. With this in mind, I have a few ideas that I'd like to share with you that I feel will contribute to your firms' competitive advantage. Please check back for some ideas that I feel will broaden your customer base and increase your sales. As any consultant would, I plan to charge you like 10 times what's reasonable. (This means you'll have to pay me like 50 candy bars.)

More to come...

Boo April

April means springtime. It means longer days and nicer weather. It means baseball. But it also means street sweeping season. This is bad. While this seems an insignificant change, it is definitely not. It is a big deal. Huge.

The even-numbered side of my street gets cleaned on certain days each month (like the first and third Tuesday), and the odd-numbered side on certain other days. Then the street on the side of my house has certain other days for the even side and the odd side. Basically there's constant street sweeping. The cleanliness of the streets is not what I have an issue with. It's the public works truck that does laps around my block at 7am letting everyone know with a recorded message being broadcast on a loudspeaker: "Street sweeping. No pahking on the even-numbahed side. You will be tagged and towed."

I'm sure the process has been thoroughly debated. And I'm sure if I had my car parked on the wrong side of the street I'd be grateful for the reminder to move it. But I'm not really a fan. Getting woken up throughout the week from April 1 until October 31 is a bummer. I see two possible actions to take:
1) go to a city council meeting and cry about it.
2) earplugs
3) move to the suburbs where people have driveways.

I'm not sure how this one turns out, but I'm pretty sure that in the end AOK still gets woken up.