War as Opportunity

"There is nothing like a war to build brand loyalty."

Honest-to-God, that is the first line of an article on page B1 of today's Wall Street Journal. The article goes on to trumpet how corporations jockey to be the ones to make sure it is their brands that get supplied to the military. You know, blowing away a bunch of enemy soldiers can be a memorable experience in a young person's life, and so it naturally follows that the brand of candy bar and soft drink you celebrate your success and survival with will also exert a strong emotional pull. Coca-Cola and Kellogg's Pop-Tarts want to be sure they are the ones you recall so fondly.

It's not easy conforming to all those military regulations on "pan-coated chocolate disks," "toffee rolls, chocolate flavored" and "cylindrical cheese-filled pretzels," (that's M&Ms, Tootsie Rolls and Combos to us civilians), but the brand loyalty payback is evidently worth it. Corporations wage veritable battles over supplying the military, and the winner gets the spoils of making sure our soldiers get Colgate instead of Crest, Charmin instead of Scotts, and to make sure it is Keebler elves and not the Pillsbury Doughboy on the front lines with our troops.

And remember: If our great corporations can display such glee over opportunities to market their products to people who have been ripped from their home and families to possibly die fighting an unnecessary war, just think how much time, energy and plotting they put into marketing to YOU...