Cheetos® Brand Flamin' Hot® Brand Flavor Cheese Flavored Snacks
As loyal readers of M. Ritchey's blog may or may not be aware, she had the pleasure of attending an all-day Jeopardy taping yesterday, featuring the pregnant sister of a good friend, who was allegedly a fierce competitor and super good (smart) sport; the results of her gaming will air the week of September 11th (how will you remember?), check your local listings.
However, something else magical happened yesterday, as M. encountered in an area vending machine new Munchies™ Flamin' Hot® Snack Mix, from Frito-Lay®. Several aspects of this new and exciting snack immediately strike a chord: first, the name, Munchies™ Flamin' Hot®. That is a good name.
And what delectable entities reside under the broad canopy of this glorious umbrella term? What diversity of treats can possibly be housed in such an unassuming snack bag? There are Sunchips® Salsa Picante Flavored Multigrain Snacks (from Frito-Lay®). There are Doritos® Brand Salsa Flavored Tortilla Chips (from Frito-Lay®). Rold Gold® Brand Classic Tiny Twists Pretzels (from Frito-Lay®). How can tiny pretzel twists already be "classic"?
And my favorite snack is this: Cheetos® Brand Flamin' Hot® Brand Flavor Cheese Flavored Snacks.
That is the official name of the snack.
This bag really underscores the inevitable confusion that results from excessive branding. "Flamin' Hot" is a ® ? "Munchies" is ™ ? How can there be two registered names in the name of a single snack? And this is the official full name of the Munchies™ snack itself: Munchies™ Flamin' Hot® Brand Flavor Snack Mix With Cheetos® Brand Flamin' Hot® Brand Flavor Cheese Flavored Snacks, Rold Gold® Brand Classic Tiny Twists Pretzels, Doritos® Brand Salsa Flavored Tortilla Chips, and Sunchips® Salsa Picante Flavored Multigrain Snacks, from Frito-Lay®.
That is the official name of the snack.
One can think of each brand flavor as a component of Frito-Lay®, but then we already have both Fritos® Brand Corn Chips and Lay's® Brand Potato Chips. Do the components comprising Munchies™ Flamin' Hot® Snack Mix "add up" to Frito-Lay®, or Munchies™, or both? In this case, I think it is difficult to call the individual brands "components" (in the way Intel® microchips are components in Apple computers), but certainly they do not stand alone either.
What's more! The snack has a "NEW LOOK! SAME GREAT TASTE!". Is the "new look" co-brandedness? I think what we have in this case is an analog to the Yum! Brands co-branded location strategy: multiple brands, operated by the same company, reinforcing one another. It still baffles me why this sort of situation would be ideal for any consumer. When just eating Sunchips® or Doritos® (in any of their many flavors) is not enough, you pick up a bag of Munchies™ Flamin' Hot®, and get them all at once? There seems to me to be more going on than just that. We desire the brands we love, and we desire them all at once. Frito-Lay® combines these brands for us, puts them all together on one bag, and then we desire the bag. The collection of brands (think DVD collection, record collection, stamp collection) becomes the consumable/collectible object itself. So even the act of collecting, combining and consuming brands is done for us, by the company that brings us the brands in the first place.
I feel like I am writing in circles, but it is hard to discuss these things and really do them justice. Maybe Munchies™ Flamin' Hot® isn't something worth putting a lot of thought into, but then there is something alarming, and bizarre, about the product, and our easy acceptance of its message.