Bad Nestle!
Sometimes I see an advertising campaign that just bugs me. I just watched a television ad from Nestle for their pre-made packaged cookie products. It showed a mother and her children baking cookies together with a voice over beginning “childhood quickly flies away like cookies on a plate”. While the sentiment they’re trying to convey “bake with your children and childhood won’t seem to slip away as quickly” is nice, their product is working for an opposite goal. By removing most of the process (”just place, bake, and decorate” the voiceover continues) they’re removing the pedagogical value of the experience and making it be over even faster. Now, sure, your children will still get to decorate the cookies (using the provided frosting and sprinkles, of course) but their idea of what it means to bake cookies will be seriously distorted. By advertising like this, not only is Nestle pushing to distort valuable childhood memories, they’re chipping away at their future chocolate chip market.