Interstate Bakeries, the maker of such Boomer staples as Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is emerging from a four-year stint in bankruptcy, with a plan to compete, innovate, and implement new methods of distribution.If there's any hope for the business, I sure hope they leave their brand experts in the courtroom. Preferrably under lock and key.Intertate is responsible for giving a generation of consumers two major benefits:A soggy, milk-white sandwich bread that let shine the filling (which was usually some pressed-beef product or, if you were lucky, Fluff)A high-calorie, trans-fat rich delivery vehicle cleverly disguised as a snack productThe stuff tasted so good because it was bad for you, triggering all of those receptors in our minds and stomachs that starving for eons of evolution had put there to tell us when we'd tripped over sources of dense nourishment. Unfortunately, since we're no longer terrorized primates whose run for our lives for a living, it was inevitable that we'd realize that bad stuff wasn't too good for us.So then the inevitable branding answers followed: "lite" versions of Twinkie snacks, portion and packaging changes, even "whole wheat Wonder Bread." If consumers wanted healthy, Interstate would comply. Yuck. In doing so, it gave up the very reasons anybody would want to buy the stuff. Bad is good, as anybody will admit, either publicly, or to one's inner sneak. At least sometimes. A healthy Wonder Bread or Twinkies product makes about as much sense as candy-coated broccoli. Cognitive dissonance would be an improvement.So what should Interstate do to realize its plans? I'm hopeful that there's a lot of thinking behind its brief public statements (and beyond the prerequisite plans to clobber union workers):Innovation: I say stop destroying the fundamental benefits of Wonder Bread, Hostess, and its other brands, and "innovate" against the goal of making it easier, faster, more affordable, and more likely that people will buy the stuff because it's bad for them. Healthy alternative? Nobody needs it. We need joy and guilty pleasures in our livesReinvigorate its brands: The nostalgia angle to sell to Boomers is getting a bit, er, old, and it's starting to grate (we could live without Dennis Hopper selling financial services, or some tone-deaf singer destroying a Bowie song to help fail to sell Lincolns). Twinkie doesn't need to remind anyone over the age of 30 what it is; the brand failed to ever escape its reputation. So be real, and be currentNew Distribution: I love it. So much of what we attribute to brand preference is really the habit or routines of consumption. Are there better ways to get snacks to people other than stacking them on grocery shelves? Of course. Interstate needs to think less about telling the world about its brand attributes, and creating more consumption moments None of these changes needed to wait for the blessing of a bankruptcy judge; other than freeing up funds (not a small accomplishment, I know), the keepers of the brands could have been pushing the actions for years. Only they didn't. Instead, Interstate has gotten lots of traditional brand marketing nonsense, and succeeded only in dismantling its once-relevant products...all in the name of staying relevant. There might be hope yet for Twinkies if they leave those marketers -- and their outdated ideas about brands -- in the past. Now, if only somebody would make Space Food Sticks mainstream again.
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