"goldfish"

One of the ways I'm trying to help my students think from a different cultural perspective for their project of marketing a Chinese product to America is to experience an unfamiliar American product as Chinese consumers and then reflect back on what they experienced.

Yesterday each group picked a brown bag that contained an American product I brought with me. As they opened the mysterious bags, oh my...What a hoot! I nearly needed ear plugs...you were right, Patti. The Pepperidge Farm goldfish soup crackers were the hit of the day. Two other products that were equally as interesting were Quaker Oats' 'smores' and peanut/chocolate granola bars and a UK product, Ginger Altoids.

They were to meet in groups yesterday and present what, if anything, they would change in each product to accommodate to Chinese tastes and packaging in this morning's class. This focus group of sorts was fascinating to listen to.

For starters, the goldfish were so interesting and so well liked the students said nothing needed to change, not the taste or the packaging and in fact, it would be positive to leave the copy the same way it is because of the country of origin (COE a term we learned today) was the US. When I told them there are other ways to eat the goldfish, namely putting them on top of soup, they looked at me strangly. Then I said, "Yes, one way to eat these is to put them on top of your lotus soup...you see goldfish floating in your soup and you eat them that way!" This was an amazing, and totally gross, idea to them. Eating as snacks is apparently the way to go! :)

As for the other products, the granola bars were 50% too sweet for their tastes and peanuts and chocolate together aren't good combinations here. But, they thought if Quaker could decrease the sugar content by 50% and not put peanuts into them, they might do okay here.

With Altoids, there was much discussion about who liked ginger--a traditional Chinese herb and ingredient in some cooking--and who didn't. The consensus was still too sweet, and maybe if instead of being round they were in the form of stars the young people, like themselves, would like it. They liked the metal box. And, two students noted that somewhere over here an enterprising person is mixing Coca Cola with ginger...

Certainly not an empirical study, but I think it enabled them to get a feel for the need and challenge in understanding other cultures when it comes to marketing new products.