ANTHRO and GEO: Oreos, China, and NPR

Heard on All Things Considered today:

Rethinking The Oreo For Chinese Consumers

With 1.3 billion people, China has a consumer audience than many people salivate over.  If you can get 1% of the Chinese to turn over a small profit to you, you will be rich.  Trouble is, the Chinese and their money are not as easily parted as Americans are.  What could be a bigger seller than that which is extremely popular in the United States?  Take the cultural icon of the OREO cookie.  It's the biggest selling cookie in China.  But that wasn't always the case.  It took a decade for Nabisco to figure out how to crack the Chinese market, and it turns out that when people buy Oreos, they aren't necessarily just buying cookies.  Furthermore, the Oreos you know and love might not be so endearing if you haven't grown up with them.  So what is the cultural meaning of an Oreo?  To an American?  To a Chinese?

Kraft Foods has reinvented the Oreo for Chinese consumers.  It's latest offering in China: straw-shaped wafers with vanilla-flavored cream filling.


No comments: