A Dookie or a Great Publicity Strategy?
Back in 1996, Nabisco reviewed their product portfolio and decided to eliminate approximately 400 products. One of the products that met its demise was the Crown Pilot cracker.
Most people might not care about a cracker being discontinued especially since it is a regional product. Mainers strongly disagreed. A woman named Donna Damon rallied the Crown Pilot faithful and launched a protest that made its way to The New York Times, Boston Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The St. Petersburg Times, Yankee Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Charles Osgood on CBS radio and many more media outlets.
Nabisco relented and with great fanfare shipped the crackers from Boston to Portland on a ferry, gave out boxes of the crackers and served chowda (chowder to everyone outside New England) to those in attendance.
Apparently Nabisco’s parent Kraft may be ready to take on the New Englanders once again. Sandra Oliver recently wrote an article in the Working Waterfront/Inter-Island News that has the locals ready to take action once again.
A food writer spoke with Ms. Oliver about how to make chowder. (I’d love the recipe if available) The food writer then called Nabisco. The person at Nabisco apparently asked the food writer not to mention the Crown Pilot Cracker because the company had no interest in promoting said cracker.
Of course the food writer relayed this news to Ms. Oliver and the alarm was sounded, rightly so I might ad.
What could possibly be going on here? Perhaps Kraft is once again reviewing their product portfolio and determining what to keep and what should go. One can only assume that at some point someone at Kraft/Nabisco would yell “Dookie in the Pool™” and remind the powers that be of the Great Cracker Controversy of 1996. If they really want to kill this product, New Englanders will I’m sure, once again fight the battle. Could this possibly be another attempt at free publicity?
Quite frankly, if Kraft/Nabisco were to come out and publicly announced that there was no intention to pull this regional favorite, the company would garner publicity from those consumers who matter most–their New England customers and would also generate a great deal of goodwill amongst Pilot Cracker lovers.
I’m quite interested to see how this plays out. I’d expect to see an all out brawl from the folks in New England. Kraft/Nabisco certainly has a tremendous amount of financial and PR clout but should they decide to kill the cracker, I’d put my money on our neighbors in New England.