Whip It Good

One of the first lessons in marketing is understanding the four Ps - Product, Price, Place and Promotion. According to one of my favorite marketing professors, the grocery store is the best place in the world to study successes and failures in marketing. I think we spent an entire semester discussing grocery store layouts, heights of shelves, width of aisles, colors of boxes, shapes of packaging, promotional end caps, and even grocery store music selection to pace your shopping experience! The psychology of grocery shopping is really fascinating. While you think you're just going to buy peanut butter, "big brother" has other plans for your shopping experience no matter how hard you fight it.

One of the most difficult things to locate in any grocery store are the marshmallows. I know this because they are a staple in my house. Marshmallows are the cue for the girls to go night-night. They are reward for those times when mom is on a conference call and they have been very patient. Marshmallows are sometimes, but not often, used as bribes when trimming toenails or taking pills. We love marshmallows, and mom even sneaks a bite or two of one every now and then - especially the strawberry ones.

But how each grocery store defines where the marshmallows should be located is a mystery to me. I personally believe that they should be with the baking goods. The marshmallow creme is there. Why not the real thing? Both our local Publix and Kroger do not agree. Maybe it should be stored with the hot chocolate since it complements it so well. Nope. Not there either at WalMart, Publix and Kroger. Ok, so maybe it's a sweetener. It's sweet, right? That was a stretch, but that's where WalMart hides them. I tell you all this because after an hour and a half shopping trip at Publix, I couldn't find marshmallows - even with help. I found marshmallow creme. But no marshmallows.

So the girls got the next best thing to hold them over - Reddi Whip (fat-free of course). I think Roxy was fed it at the track because she knows how to suck it right out of the can. Either that or she did whipits with the "bad crowd" at the kennel before she came here.



Seka on the other hand, prefers to lick it off of my finger. She thinks it is way more lady like. It's a lot of fun to feed it to them even if it is messy. So, while we have no marshmallows, we have sticky faces and happy tummies. But mom misses the strawberry marshmallows.