Dear Cadbury

Cadbury has recently launched new re-sealable packaging for their chocolate slabs.

 

“The launch of Cadbury Dairy Milk’s resealable packaging is a £6-million project, which is aimed at improving the visibility of the brand, as well as consumer convenience. The easy-open, easy-close packaging allows consumers to keep the chocolate longer by means of resealing the wrapper. The unique new packaging allows consumers to be able to open and close their favourite chocolate slab again and again”

The product has been widely advertised on television. However, scientific investigation has revealed two fundamental flaws with their advert (see report below).

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Dear Cadbury

As a life-long fan of your chocolate products I feel obliged to point out two problems with your current advertising campaign for the new re-sealable packaging for Cadbury chocolate slabs.

The television advert shows the Peel-me packaging being opened to reveal the blocks of chocolate beneath, then immediately being re-sealed, without any chocolate being removed.

The first obvious problem with this scenario is that all the Cadbury chocolates I’ve ever eaten have the block indentations on the front and not the back of the chocolate, and thus they would not be visible when the re-sealable packaged is opened.

The second reason that we think the advert is misleading is that nobody who has ever tasted Cadbury chocolate would open and then immediately reseal the packaging without consuming a single block. This might happen with other brands of chocolate, but certainly not with Cadbury.

The empirical evidence in support of the above assertions in presented in the short scientific report herewith attached.

Good luck with your new re-sealable packaging – I don’t think it will be used much. :-)

Yours in faithful service to excellent chocolate,

Craig Morris

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An empirical investigation on the fundamental tenets of an advertising campaign to promote the new Cadbury re-sealable chocolate slab packaging

Introduction

In 2012, Kraft Food introduced a unique new resealable packaging for their Cadbury chocolate slab range. Such packaging was apparently designed for customer convenience, to allow them to prolong the consumption of their favourite chocolate over a period by facilitating resealing of the remnant chocolate between feeding bouts to preserve its freshness and protect its contents against spouses and dogs.

Much planning and thought has gone into the design of this packaging: “[The] re-sealable digital activation and packaging innovation is in-line with current South Africa consumer trends which shows consumers are constantly seeking new experiences beyond the product. Both enable our consumers to experience the joy of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate again and again” says Greg Banach, Kraft Foods Category Leader: Chocolate.

 The digital activation campaign

The television advertising campaign for this product shows the Peel-me packaging being opened to reveal the blocks of chocolate beneath, then immediately being re-sealed, without any chocolate being removed. The two key premises of this advert that have not, however, received any sound scientific attention. Accordingly, the specific research questions of this research were: (1) does the block indentation pattern in the slab lie on the verso, and thus be visible to the potential consumer when the Peel-me re-sealable packaging is opened?, and (2) would the consumer immediately reseal the package upon opening, without removing at least one block for inspection and likely consumption?

Materials and Methods

A dual sampling procedure, similar to that employed by agrostogists to estimate available herbage on planted pastures or natural grasslands using a disc-pasture meter, was used to verify the surface structural characteristics of the anterior and posterior of Cadbury standard flavour range slabs. The finger feel method was calibrated by touching and estimating the smoothness of three wrapped slabs, followed by verification of the estimates by unwrapping and establishing the true location of the blocked surface.

Thereafter, a stratified random sampling design was used to sample at least 40 (10 per flavour) wrapped slabs located on three shelves of the confectionery section of a local supermarket. The position of the blocked surface (Figure 1) was estimated by touch (following calibration, as described above).

 Figure 1: The blocked surface of a Cadbury chocolate slab.

The second question regarding the viability of re-sealing the chocolate slab without consuming any, or some, chocolate was addressed using a sample survey questionnaire distributed internationally through social media (Facebook & Twitter). Respondents were asked: When opening a re-sealable Cadbury 100g slab, do you: A) immediately reseal it, B) eat some then reseal it, or C) nosh the lot?

Results

A total of 100% of all the chocolate bars sampled had the blocked surface on their anterior side, opposite to the re-sealable opening on the posterior. A total of 0% had the blocks on the back.

The survey revealed a skewed distribution of responses (Table 1).

Table 1: Number of respondents in each response category

Immediately reseal	Eat some then reseal	Nosh the lot
0.3	1.3	179.3

Note: numbers, but not ratios have been inflated to make the results more impressive.

Discussion and Conclusion

There is no empirical support for the advertised characteristics of the new re-sealable packaging for Cadbury chocolate slabs. Therefore, it is recommended that, when purchasing a Cadbury chocolate, remove the whole wrapper, turn the chocolate with the blocked surface to face you, and then break up the slab into mouth-sized pieces for complete consumption (alone) at a single sitting.

We need Paul

Those who haven’t realised that Spain is going to win Euro 2012 are resorting to all kinds of farm and semi-wild animals to help them predict the outcome of the matches.

Citta, a sagacious Indian elephant in Krakow, Khryak, a beer-loving prognosticating pig in Kiev, and even Fred, the ferret (who is actually an otter) have been hauled into telephathic service by the bookies to forecast winners in this year’s tournament.

And Yvonne, the runaway cow, has already got it spectacularly wrong.

Yvonne the runaway cow predicted German defeat in Euro 2012 opener. Source

Perhaps a fish will get it right?

However, none, not even the most purportedly perspicacious of these hairy or hairless critters actually has even the slightest knowledge of soccer; not one of them is a trustworthy expert of the beautiful game. None of them is Paul, the only  non-prokaryote on this planet who actually knew his stuff.  

And the stats prove it...

Prescient cephalopod

Witness, 21 Jul 2010 

REPUTABLE scientists would likely have distanced themselves from all the recent flippant falderal concerning the apparent psychic powers of Paul the octopus. After all, how could a creature with a brain smaller than that of Paris Hilton (see J. Gardener, The Witness, July 16) foretell the outcome of an inherently unpredictable game?

Scientists are a sceptical bunch and demand strong evidence that the effect they have observed (say, the outcome of an experiment) was not just a statistical fluke, unlikely to reoccur.

By convention, a result is generally accepted only if there is less than one chance in 20 (50 in 1 000) of it not being just a chance outcome.

So how did Paul do? The chance of successfully predicting the outcome of eight football matches in a row (as he did) by simply sucking his tentacles — that is, by a run of pure luck — turns out to be less than four in 1 000 (p = 0,00391, in scientific parlance). The cephalopod does, therefore, seem to be significantly prescient or the Word Cup was rigged and he was in on it.

CRAIG MORRIS

Pelham, Pietermaritzburg

 ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

A monument to the magnificent Paul, at Sea Life Aquarium, Germany

 

RIP Paul

Kindness rocks

A cappuccino of kindness and some Smarties to go, please...

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around” (Leo Buscaglia)

I so often forget to be kind. Simple acts of kindness can warm one’s heart, and give you a new spring of hope in your step. The following three acts of kindness have remained with me.

The first deed of kindness involved cappuccino sachets, my beloved, Anita (who is hooked on them) and a total stranger. Anita once went into a supermarket in another town to buy bread (and emergency Smarties for me) and ended up in the checkout queue behind a lady whose trolley was well stocked with boxes of Nestlé cappuccino sachets. The lady told Anita that they were on sale that day, but there unfortunately happened to be only one box remaining for her. After the lady paid for her groceries, she dropped a box in Anita’s trolley, saying “Here’s an early Christmas present for you.”

source

The second story of deeply touching kindness has got nothing to do with accountants, but involves somebody I’ve known since birth – my older brother. During a stay in hospital recovering from an injury that left the lower half of my body paralysed, I was permitted to leave the hospital for the first time for a weekend back home. As our cottage on the farm was not wheelchair accessible, I travelled down, lying comfortably in the back of my brother’s bakkie (pickup), to his house on the coast. Getting out into the wheelchair on arrival was not easy, and another chap came to assist my brother to lift me out. “Eish!, he is heavy”, warned the assistant. Holding me firmly, my brother replied “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

And the third little story involves Smarties, and a chap called Scott in Cape Town whom I have yet to meet, but with whom I have had many interesting (short) conversations via socal media. Scott, a journalist, intrepid father, and all round astute fellow, had gleaned two things about me from our interactions: (1) that I take grass seriously, and (2) that I take Smarties even more seriously, being the reigning Smartie-eating champion of the SA Navy. Well, one day, I received a parcel from an unknown sender, which, when shaken, rattled suspiciously. Now I do know how to deal properly with suspicious packages, having once spent 7 hours in the tiny Port Elizabeth airport. I spotted a dodgy looking package lying there and reported it to the security lady. She picked it up, gave it a good shake, and then put it under the check-in counter. The rattle of my parcel did, however, sound pleasingly familiar, so I incautiously ripped it open. Inside was a whole packet filled with special 75^th Smarties Anniversary retro hexagon-shaped boxes, imported especially all the way from the UK, the birthplace of the Smarties, by Scott in Cape Town.

Kind-flavoured Smarties taste the very best 

Today I call you Tree

Today I call you Tree

Today I call you Tree

I  linger

languorously

lazily

‘neath your outstretched shady limbs

Today I call you Tree

I listen

joyfully

wondrously

to your feathery, living song

Today I call you Tree

I harvest

bounteously

gratefully

your ripened homegrown gifts

Today I call you wood

this day

the Tree

died

in me

Permission to groan

It's holiday, so time for some verbosity - Let these Tom Swifties verbease you into the long weekend. Only one of them is about grass, and it's not a very good one.

“You are completely missing my point” said Tom bluntly.

“My 18-wheeler was not blocking the entrance to the fuelstation” replied Tom truculently.

“I suppose it’s time to get out the mower again” sighed Tom forlornly.

“It is my garden, and my tree, and I’ll pee wherever I feel” retorted Tom doggedly.

“Making pancakes is like so easy” said Tom flippantly.

“I suppose I’ve have to spend another week in hospital” sighed Tom patiently.

“At last I’ve got rid of all the pesky electricity out of my new coat” rejoiced Tom exstatically.

“That’s the last time I’m feeding the crocodile” said Tom off-handedly.

“Don’t be silly. Bungee cords never break!” snapped Tom.

 Any more?

The Bolas spider

Gaucho cowboy spiders in our grassland

A particular type of lasso, known as Bolas (or boleadoras, balls) has been used since Pre-Columbian times to capture wild animals, and is still used nowadays by Gauchos, or South American cowboys, to lasso cattle. It comprises three or more heavy balls at the end of three joined cords that is spun above the head and then thrown to entangle itself around an animal's legs to bring it down.

Ivory and silver Gaucho bolas

There is a grassland-dwelling spider that does the same thing... As David Attenborough breathlessly explains, the bolas spider hangs from a line of silk, emitting a pheromone tailored to attract a particular moth of its choice, then snares its prey with its spinning web-made bolas.   

John Roff, who discovered a new species of bolas spider in the grassland area of our local botanical gardens (Pietermaritzburg, SA), describes its deft action:  

"The spiders first constructs a few silk lines, known as trapeze-lines, from which they hang using their hind legs. A short silk thread, the bolas-line, is then constructed, with from one to several sticky globules (bolas) fixed to the free end. The bola consists of a large globule of gluey mass containing a mass of fibres . The bolas-line is rotated (with a second pair of legs), catching prey, usually moths in flight."

Here is the local bolas spider in action (video thanks to Charlene Russell, WESSA)

 

Light, rock, water and grass

This blogpost was originally intended to be a cogent and concise exposition on the importance of montane caespitose (tufted) perennial grassland in the hydrological balance of the mountain catchments of South Africa. It ended up as some photos and the briefest of poems ... with some views of our incomparable Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains) grassslands.
 

 

Grass

mediates

Light, Water and Soil

holds

the Earth