Word Salad Challenge

Abstract

BRANDING OF FOOD BEGAN WITH the names of places or origin of shipping, as in Port or Yorkshire ham. Much later the names of trusted merchants or their family companies appeared on labels and in early advertising. Late in the nineteenth century, some companies began to use imaginary people and animals to advertise, virtual avatars sometimes based on living or cartoon models, while others were entirely invented. Today we take it for granted that food labels and advertising are populated by elves and leprechauns, rabbits and pink panthers, superheroes and puppets. Some characters, like the infamous Frito Bandito, are tightly tethered to a single line of products, while others have a great deal of mobility across entire brands. They are familiar faces in the media brandscape, known to most people in the United States, and they have spread around the globe as food processing has become increasingly globalized. How well do you know these famous marketing professionals? The first part of this quiz asks you to match each food with its imaginary spokes-entity. Some of the products are no longer sold and they may have had more than one fictional spokesperson. Just to make things more challenging, I have added a third column with the names of the companies that now own and control these characters. Finally, the fourth column has imaginary “birthdates,” when the character first began selling food. Extra credit: which of the original characters (the one on which the brandwasbased)wasburiedinPlainsboro,NewJersey,in1941?