Attention Cat Food Package Designers

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

[crabby opinion] I wish the people who design these packages would stop putting pictures on them of cats with their tongue out.

It is meant to convey licking one’s lips in anticipation, a human cliche which is dubious even for humans, but just wrong for cats. Cats lick their lips after they eat.

Pretty much I think all advertising which depicts anyone, feline or human, with their tongue hanging out looks stupid. Well, not dogs. Dogs often do go around lolling their tongues. But otherwise. [/crabby opinion]
FWIW I loved the older Friskies “Indoor Delights” kibble packages. It showed a cat in a room with houseplants and some laundry on an armchair that turned into an (imaginary) waterfall and made the room into a jungle. The trees in the background had shapes of cows and chickens visually embossed into their leaves.

The “Griller’s Delights” package had a cat cooking at the barbecue and the smoke curling up from the grill turned into the cows and chickens. These were brilliant design, and I always meant to write the company and tell them so. Too late now.

2

Pictures of golden retrievers, in particular, with their tongues hanging out, are okay.

3

Sure, but they’re selling them to people, not cats. So they show the cats doing things intended to convey that they like the food. Doesn’t really matter if it’s accurate or not- it’s advertising. Was there really a tuna named Charlie? Does Morris the cat really think smart-assed stuff in English?

4

I disagree, here is my cat as a kitten attacking a camera strap with his tongue out. It is, in fact, adorable:

5

Greyhounds look really silly with their tongues hanging out. Why do you think they’re muzzled when they race? Photographic hint

And at rest

6

Jragon: Ah, but that’s not “hanging out.” That’s “licking tiny kitten nose,” and it is adorable.

JcWoman: ROFL!!!

7

Bah!

I mean, he is deeply stupid, even for a cat. And sure, he does look kinda stupid in that shot. But it is an adorable stupid :D.

And actually he does sort of think he is a dog, so the fact that he lets his tongue loll out all the time when he relaxes sorta makes sense. Sorta.

8

I just keep imagining some poor “cat food package designer” who has been lurking for 20 years on the net jumping up and screaming “now MY time has finally come!”

9

Tamerlane: That, again, is a pretty much also an adorable cat’s tongue photo, in the category, I think, of “forgot to roll the danged thing in.”

What I am talking about is the very abstracted, exaggerated, almost clownish meme known as “licking your chops.”

Like this and this.

10

Yes! I hope so! Like I said, the old Friskies ones were really great.