Unclear on the concept: International Paper’s Tuscany cups
Posted by TheShot on 26 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Café Society, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues
Sometimes we simply cannot believe our eyes. Today we were browsing through the coffee industry trade rag, Coffee Talk, and we stumbled across this advertisement from International Paper. Could there be anything more wrong with this photo?
We can only guess that the marketing executives that approved this ad haven’t been any closer to Tuscany than the local Olive Garden — located just 10 miles down Poplar Ave. from International Paper’s Memphis, TN global headquarters. “The rich flavor of Tuscany™”…is a paper cup? Nevermind that no Tuscan would be caught dead drinking their caffè out of a paper cup. Nevermind that the paper cup is the size of the woman’s head.
Of course, if Subway can plug the Tuscan Chicken Melt, should we really be surprised? Those poor residents of Tuscany. They may have given us Dante Alighieri and the birth of the modern Italian language, but they also gave us a name defiled by every industrial fast food producer in Western Civilization. We always thought the regional food in Italy was better in Emilia-Romagna or Piemonte, but both lack the cheesy corporate marketing tie-in credentials to prove it.
4 Comments »
thanks TheShot! you are so right we would never drink coffee out of a paper cup and we even get nervous about which ceramic espresso cup to use (in terms of design and brand) …extreme I know!
Woefully, I will have to disagree, as this is PERFECT marketing to the American Consumer. Bravo! to International Paper for extending these sorry people’s plight in consumerism.
When in America, do as the as the Americans do.
Though we suppose if you think of it as International Paper’s marketing equivalent of the Aristocrats joke punch-line…
i.e.:
Q: What the heck do you call that?
A: I call it, “Tuscany”.
You people are a bunch of whiners. Once you make me a ceramic coffee mug to go, send me your link!