I'd like to start off by saying this is the best thing I've read all day. I wish I could run it in the editorial section.
Next:
"With sales falling, though, and while pursuing a ramped-up, yet horribly obsolete, advertising campaign, our beloved Ovaltine--with its outdated image and passé social concepts--may be on its way out.
What will we have lost if it disappears? "
Nothing to speak of. I think Ovaltine has held onto its 1950s wholesome reputation because they count on parents to get all nostalgic and buy it for their children. How many people our age or younger have even heard of Ovaltine? I don't think I'd even know what it was if it wasn't for Ralph. I have seen the occasional, obscure advert on late night television and it seems very out of place, like someone forgot to remove it from the lineup or maybe put it in as a joke.
As you said, it tastes like chocolate chalk drink, so Ovaltine doesn't have much going as far as the actual product is concerned. You can't put Ovaltine in a newly shaped bottle, slap some neon orange stickers on it and come up with a catchy 1990s kicker, "Ovaltine to the EXTREME." But they do have a strong tie (Thanks to that movie you just watched, too) to that stereotypical idea that everything was somehow better for you, more well made, more wholesome, uncorrupt and had better family values in the 1950s. Even Ralph saw through Ovaltine's clever marketing scheme: "A stupid commercial?" There was hardcore anal fisting then, too. It was just censored more and children didn't have the Internet.
So what has Ovaltine done for us lately? As you were saying, a post modern obsession with clinging to obscurities until those obscurities become rewritten, reimaged, given new meaning and the kitschy coolness beaten out of them until you want to throw up. I haven't seen Ovaltine specifically become a new trend, but it's just an example of so many other genuine or at least perceived to be genuine things that are sucked into the black hole of pop culture and spat back out like your grandfather's chewing tobacco (is that still a unique aspect of Americana?)
I say we let it go. Let Ovaltine go, Dana. It's just a brand and an image that has been pounded into peoples' heads about a better time so they can make you feel sorry for them. It would be nice to have truthful, non commerical things to remind of our precious zeitgeist. But here in America, well. We suck. So let's torch it all and move on to something new. Hands up, who's with me?
I've been sending MREs by rocket for about the past six months. I've contracted Zeke to build the air tight Moon Dome (TM) under the guise of working with bubble wrap and motherboards, so it shouldn't be long now.
Next:
"With sales falling, though, and while pursuing a ramped-up, yet horribly obsolete, advertising campaign, our beloved Ovaltine--with its outdated image and passé social concepts--may be on its way out.
What will we have lost if it disappears? "
Nothing to speak of. I think Ovaltine has held onto its 1950s wholesome reputation because they count on parents to get all nostalgic and buy it for their children. How many people our age or younger have even heard of Ovaltine? I don't think I'd even know what it was if it wasn't for Ralph. I have seen the occasional, obscure advert on late night television and it seems very out of place, like someone forgot to remove it from the lineup or maybe put it in as a joke.
As you said, it tastes like chocolate chalk drink, so Ovaltine doesn't have much going as far as the actual product is concerned. You can't put Ovaltine in a newly shaped bottle, slap some neon orange stickers on it and come up with a catchy 1990s kicker, "Ovaltine to the EXTREME." But they do have a strong tie (Thanks to that movie you just watched, too) to that stereotypical idea that everything was somehow better for you, more well made, more wholesome, uncorrupt and had better family values in the 1950s. Even Ralph saw through Ovaltine's clever marketing scheme: "A stupid commercial?" There was hardcore anal fisting then, too. It was just censored more and children didn't have the Internet.
So what has Ovaltine done for us lately? As you were saying, a post modern obsession with clinging to obscurities until those obscurities become rewritten, reimaged, given new meaning and the kitschy coolness beaten out of them until you want to throw up. I haven't seen Ovaltine specifically become a new trend, but it's just an example of so many other genuine or at least perceived to be genuine things that are sucked into the black hole of pop culture and spat back out like your grandfather's chewing tobacco (is that still a unique aspect of Americana?)
I say we let it go. Let Ovaltine go, Dana. It's just a brand and an image that has been pounded into peoples' heads about a better time so they can make you feel sorry for them. It would be nice to have truthful, non commerical things to remind of our precious zeitgeist. But here in America, well. We suck. So let's torch it all and move on to something new. Hands up, who's with me?
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