Why do we buy a certain brand? What is it that attracts us and keeps us as customers, especially in this fickle world of diversified selections, price wars, and bombardments of advertising gimmicks?
It is because we’ve grown accustomed to that brand giving us the same experience yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is consistently. Moreover, when they try to change the brand, sometimes a civil war breaks out (who remembers changing the Coke formula?).
Well, I’ve been eating Ritz Crackers for more years that I care to admit. Those crackers where “everything tastes better on”, be it cream cheese, tuna fish or slices of cheese and cold cuts. The crackers were stiff so you were able to dip, but never hard.
They (notice the past tense) were great and “everything did go better on a Ritz!”
Not any more
Nabisco must be cost cutting again, but the last two boxes of Ritz we consumed were not up to the standards that I expect. I became a brand customer for a reason; now the crackers just break if you look at them wrong.
I just sat down to some egg salad and Ritz. I’ll explain this for those at Nabisco who aren’t users of their own products. I take the cracker, try to scoop some egg salad onto said cracker; then consume cracker and egg salad. That’s the way its been working for years (you can substitute egg salad for any other food item that is scoupable).
But Nooooooo (think Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live). The cracker falls apart. The ritual of the meal is destroyed. The taste, the ambiance the mood, ruined.
Nabisco, you’ve destroyed the Ritz Cracker, you’ve destroyed the brand and now it is dead to me.
Having lost that once loyal customer, I hope you’re proud!
Because I’m just sad.
