QuikTrip Campaign Gets Honest and Scoffs at Obesity Concerns

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QuikTrip, a convenience store chain based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has gotten refreshingly honest with its health claims — or, rather, lack thereof. Its billboards don’t try to tell you that chocolate milk is essential for children or that Coca-Cola should play a role in a “healthy, active lifestyle.”

Instead it acknowledges that junk food is bad for you, but still delicious. “Life’s too short for oatmeal,” it says, next to a bigger-than-life-sized picture of a sticky bun.

Or, to use BrandFreak’s paraphrase, “Eat sugary foods from QT Kitchens. You’re going to die anyway!”

This approach is much more honest than putting a green “Smart Choices” check mark on junk food on grounds that it might be healthier than other junk food. Plus, it’s much less likely to run into legal troubles.

Though as one blogger points out, oatmeal can be delicious too, and if made right, it can almost qualify as junk food by itself.

Tags: Food, QuikTrip Corp., Food & Beverage, Manufacturing, Katherine Glover

Katherine Glover is a Minneapolis-based print, radio and online journalist. She's written for Salon.com, Sierra Magazine and many others, and she does a weekly blog on immigration issues for MinnPost.

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iyer1945

11/25/09 | Report as spam

RE: QuikTrip Campaign Gets Honest and Scoffs at Obesity Concerns

There is nothing like honest business. When you sell anything at higher price than the cost, that itself is dishonesty.
But it is interesting to note that somebody is becoming ethical. False claims on product quality is, often endorsed by celebrities in media advertisements lure the customers as they do not know the truth. It is like saying "Our toothpaste contains fluouride" during old days when all toothpastes mandatorily contained fluoiride. There was a case of one famous MNE adding cheap cassava powderto coffee powder (obviously to reduce their cost) and selling at higher price claiming nutritional benefits for such a starchy stuff.
If product manaufacturers start telling truth about their products, noen would buy, as we say in India, if you visit the kitchen of a hotel (five star included) you will not eat anything there.
Where do truth and ethics begin and where do they end?
Is it not a matter for contemplation?