So… I opened up my fave food webwire service this morning to find a story about a new limited-time ‘year-end specialty’ from McDonald’s China: a new ‘Burger’ featuring SPAM. That would have been fine by itself. But they also decided to make it a crossover with OREOs…
The new McDonald’s SPAM/OREO Burger crossover… Only in Taiwan.
But the delicacy turned out to be a triple cross(over) involving McD’s, SPAM and OREOs. As far as I can see, the only thing that SPAM and OREOs have in common is that the brand names both officially spell their names in ‘ALL CAPS’.
But there sat a story, scalped by an Asia-watching food blogger from the Chinese social media site Weibo, about this new thing’, sent to brighten Chinese hearts pre-New Year’s, which is traditionally their culture’s biggest holiday of the year.
Why SPAM?
To be fair, SPAM Burgers aren’t really a new thing. We’ve heard about them before, from nutty American entrepreneurs to resto cooks in Hawaii and the Philippines where SPAM is wild-and-crazy popular because folks got a taste for it after they were liberated by the Americans from the Chinese Occupation during the Second World War.
A little research reveals that a number of companies in China make Salted, cured Pork luncheon meat products similar to SPAM, and all seem to be thriving on consistently strong demand.
Why OREOs?
At first, OREOs did very poorly in the Asian market. In China, especially, they were stuck in unspectacular single digits of the market share. But when a new President was appointed for Kraft Foods China in 2011, the people were consulted directly about their prefernces, some big (and small) changes were made, and the OREO brand now owns almost half the sandwich cookie market there. They also, now, make more than a dozen styles of cookies and biscuits especially for the Chinese market and are thriving.
So, folks at McDonald’s China could be forgiven for thinking that a crossover would be a good idea.
Well… Wait a minute…
When you look at North American product crossover ideas that seem crazy enough as they are, you’ll always see some kind of firm product (usually flavour-based) connection. ‘Flaming Hot’ versions of Salty Snack brands that formerly had no interest in going crazy-hot. All kinds of complimentary flavours showing up in Dipping Sauces and other foods that pretty much stuck to plain, traditional versions of the product previously.
There’s also another side to this phenomenon: crossovers are almost always concocted from two or more members of the same or closely-related brand families, all controlled by the same mother company. They don’t have to pay to license the flavours, slogans and names of their own products and they end up with valuable cross-promotion marketing play.
So, what happened in China?
So what happened in China with the new SPAM/OREO crossover Burger? It could be that marketing types in the People’s Republic aren’t quite up to speed with the concept. Their idea may simply have been: “If folks here love SPAM, and OREOS and the McDonald’s brand itself, why not just out them together in one familiar form?”
But a McDonald’s OREO-derived seasonal Dessert might be a great success. Or an OREO-enhanced existing popular Dessert or Snack McMenu item. But a Burger? Maybe, without the OREOs. It’s been done elsewhere in Asia already, apparently with some notable success.
A teachable moment…
On the bright side, the strange (if not so wonderful) notion of a SPAM/OREO Burger crossover may be that it provides a clear demonstration of a crossover that doesn’t work, which clearly demonstrates why it doesn’t work. Ah, well. They’re only planning on making and selling 40o,000 SPAM/OREO Burgers, available while supplies last. That ought to provide enough feedback to set ’em straight.
More evidence that some ideas don’t translate
I also found, in the same food news feed, word that Pizza Hut Taiwan is headed down a crooked street with a couple of new crossover ideas.
The first is a Beef Wellington Pies that looks, from the official portraits, like a cross between the pull-off Cheese-Stuffed Puffs Crust the Hut pioneered a few years back and a similar format that featured Hot Dog Stuffers.
The second is a regular-looking Pie that features Fire Spicy Hot Pot flavours. Okay. Some resemblance, there, to traditional Asian dishes. But will it fly if it comes on a plate and not in a bowl?
~ Maggie J.