It seems over the past 2 years or so, that more places/brands are pushing “low-carb” (which means whatever they want it to mean) foods/beverages. What took marketers so long? I can remember my folks being on a low-carb diet in the late-90’s, which by default meant I was on a low-carb diet for dinner (at least). It seems like five years is an awfully slow reaction time for people that are supposed to be in tune with what customers want. Was there a spike in people on Atkins/South Beach recently, or are marketers just slow?
I’m still waiting here in the Isle of Man.
I was going to post a thread similar to this yestarday. About why are they still advertising/making low-fat products for diet purposes when more and more people are learning why low-carb dieting makes an utter mockery of low-fat dieting.
Well, it wasn’t until advertisers realized that low-carb was going to turn into a big thing that they started advertising it, turning it into a big thing. Had to wait for the tipping point as it were.
As for low-fat: people are used to it. Repackaging something is tantamount to rebranding it which takes lots of time and money. I suspect that the reason they haven’t done it is because people are still buying it and the drop in sales doesn’t warrant changing it. Should a sales drop occur, you won’t recognize the product next time you walk into a store.
I think that it pretty much qualified as a “fad” diet until, oh, say, last year, when some august medical organization (AMA, FDA, somebody like that) admitted in a red-faced sort of way that they couldn’t disprove Dr. Atkins’ claims.
The market was very quick to respond.
As Chairman Pow mentioned, repackaging an existing product takes time. The new package has to be designed, tested, approved, machines tweaked, etc., etc.
For the new ‘low carb’ stuff, that takes even more time: besides the package design, you have to come up with a good recipie, test it to make sure tastes at least somewhat decent, set up the production line, tweak things to meet quality control, etc., etc.
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Just my WAG, and the timing may be coincidental, but I don’t recall seeing Atkins logos all over restaurant menus and everywhere else while Dr. Atkins himself was still alive.