Even MORE brands today!
Today we are talking about even more brands from childhood favorites to some more culturally influenced ones!
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:07)
Welcome back to the Marketing Gateway. I’m Sean and St. Louis and with me I’ve got Trish, who is our scheduler and office manager here at RPG where we all work. And I’ve got Holly, who is our production assistant and also occasionally a research analyst here at RPG. So really glad to have you both back on. And at our last episode, we were talking about brands that we all knew and that we’d intersected with at different points in our lives. And part of the point of this discussion is not just ⁓ to have a good nostalgic memory tour. I mean, that’s fun.
But it’s also to talk a little bit about how these brands have intersected with our lives in ways that go beyond just a product that we pick up on the shelf or something that we remember seeing at a commercial or anything like that. They really have these important formative memories that we all carry with us and we all experience them a little bit differently. So the one I want to talk about first in this episode is something that ⁓ we call them the red monster menace at my house because we can’t stand this guy.
⁓ My kids fortunately have aged way out of where we would have to intersect with this character at all But he was particularly notorious for ruining Christmas one year and I know you guys are all thinking I’m talking about the Grinch and a Santa costume or something But no, I’m talking about Elmo from Sesame Street and more specifically the tickle me Elmo doll Which I have always been my children from owning anything like it. I can’t stand it But tickle me Elmo was this fad ⁓ That one Christmas everybody had to have it
And it was an Elmo that would laugh and giggle in the voice of the character. And it was absolutely obnoxious. Trish, do you remember these things? You probably didn’t have kids by the time that was out, right? did you? Okay. So what do you remember about Tickle Me Elmo? My oldest, she was very young at the time, but my mom and my grandma went out and they were on a mission to get this child, the first grandbaby, the Tickle Me Elmo, because she just had to have it. You know, they were not going to have any other way.
Holy moly, I they stood outside at Toys R Us for like five hours in line on Black Friday or something and saying, freezing cold, but they got that Tickle Me Elmo and I think we still have it stored away. I hope It was one of those things that like nobody’s ever allowed to get rid of the Tickle Me Elmo, ever. It’s like a Greek myth about how they had to sail across sea to get the Tickle Me Elmo monsters.
Giggling in the tub somewhere in my storage unit. Did you have any intersection with Tickle Me Elmo, Molly? I think my cousins had one, but I think by the time it was out, I was kind of a little bit, it was a little bit after my time, I guess you could say. was a little aged out of it by the time it came out. So I didn’t really have, I don’t recall having one at least.
I could have blocked the trauma, but you know. And you know, within a couple of years, I mean, they were, you could get them at thrift stores. mean, you nobody wanted them anymore and they released all kinds of other models of it. There was even a dancing one one year, I remember, which was really creepy. ⁓ But it really lost its luster after that particular Christmas. But at the time, gosh, everybody was talking about it and people were hoping they could score one so they could sell them online for lots of money. ⁓ yeah.
And that was kind of at the time where selling things online as a speculator, where you were trying to make money and sell things at a profit was kind of getting to be a big deal. Another… eBay, Yeah, eBay. Furby. I’ve always heard Furby was one of the things that made eBay profitable because Furby was another toy that was very popular one Christmas and people were selling them like crazy online. Zuzupets, too. remember that being a big Zuzupets. Yeah, those were wild. It seems like almost every year there’s some kind of crazy fad.
that then people are really, really sick of once Christmas is over and we’re all over it. I don’t think there was anything like that this year that I can think of, but. la boo boo’s. How could I forget la boo boo’s? Which I would hope people are already getting over, but. Luckily my daughter didn’t want, she didn’t care about him this year, but I did have a friend of mine call me to ask.
where we get them because she was searching high and low for one for her niece and I think she pretty I think she found one but those were from what I heard hard to find this year. Yes. I’m grateful I didn’t have to go that route. I just can’t stand looking at them. I didn’t even know what they were until a few months ago and now you know and I feel like the way that they do Black Friday these days compared to when they did them 10 years ago
there is an easier amount of time to get things from other stores because everybody’s got their Black Friday sales differently now and throughout the entire season. So, but when in our day, when we had to go out for Black Friday shopping, you had to plan to go your store routes, you needed your map, you needed to know where that toy was and you had a whole lot to get there because otherwise they weren’t going to be gone. So I feel like these days it makes it a little bit easier to get a little of items now that we have.
and shopping and all that too. We also didn’t necessarily have that so much. You had to go to that Black Friday sale to get whatever you wanted, if you wanted it on time and guaranteed. Listeners who bothered to listen to any of the episodes I put up earlier in the year know that I am not a fan of Black Friday. Having had to work it a lot as a retail employee, but definitely one thing that you had mentioned that I wanted to bring back up was Toys R Us. Toys R Us was a place I avoided like, you know, crazy on Black Friday, but.
Toys R Us is no longer around as a brand. mean, they’re still in Macy’s because they kind of acquired the brand and made a little pop-up store, but like the company itself is defunct and gone. And Toys R Us for me, that was like Mecca, you that was going to this place where could see all the toys and there were other toy stores like it. There was Children’s Palace and there were a few other brands like that, but Toys R was the one that endured the longest. I even worked there once summer. I worked at remodeling a store in Champaign Urbana where I was going to school.
When Toys R closed, my son cried. He was very upset. He was probably about four or five. He was just upset that he would never be able to have that experience again and go into a store like that. My daughter did too. She was so upset. That was her favorite place. I was so upset. We would take the girls on their birthday because they would always do the birthday crown and do like a little special thing for them. And when she was really young, that was her favorite thing to do.
birthday was to go to Toys R Us and out a prize and wear her crown through the store because she got all the attention and all the happy birthday. She loved it. So it was was very sad to see that go. I loved going to Toys R Us like a little bit before Christmas time because I would get up to pick out like I was a brass girl. I was in so much of Barbie gear. And I would like be like, mom, I want Jade.
I Chloe, I want Sasha, want Yasmin. Yeah. It was also fun to take the kids before Christmas, like you said, and let them roam the aisles and pick out what they wanted for Christmas. Because then I could make like a Christmas list of what they were very interested in. And we would go over like, we’re just window shopping, you know, just getting ideas. And, I mean, my list would be a mile long, we’d come out to Toys R Us. But I knew what they wanted. So it was kind of fun. There were definitely multiple times I…
Figuratively fell to my knees when my dad would be like, no, you’re not getting this Bratz doll. No, you’re not getting this Barbie thing. Just give it up. Being a brat in the Bratz aisle, that’s a bold look. Well, another brand that got really popular in the 1980s, I don’t think it’s really a big deal to anybody now.
you find them at Dunkin’ Donuts today, is Baskin Robbins. So Baskin Robbins famously was the ice cream shop that had 31 flavors. ⁓ So did you ever go to Baskin Robbins growing up? What do you remember about them? The flavors. Do you still go there? Yeah, we still won at O’Fallon. So every once in a while we’ll go out there. Not too often, just because we’re not out that way too often. But yeah, anytime we see one, they’ve got the best rocky road. I’m just going to say that. So when we go, that is my go-to.
love it. It’s so good. Something’s different about theirs. I just love it. love the cotton candy flavor. It was funny when froyo was like a big trend. dad did not like frozen yogurt. So if we went, if me and my mom wanted frozen yogurt after every Saturday night, we would go out to eat like at a restaurant and afterwards we’d be like, let’s go get froyo.
We’d have to go separately to Baskin Robbins for my dad because he did not like frozen yogurt. It’s so interesting because Baskin Robbins for me, I think the thing I remember most was the clown birthday things that they would do. They would turn the cone upside down and make a little clown face on the ice cream scoop. We buy our friend Chris.
clown cone every time we go to Baskin Robbins because he hates them so much but he feels so bad because it’s a gift so he feels like he has to eat it but we buy him a clown cone as like mild torture every time we go to Baskin Robbins. mean you’re gonna torture me, torture me with ice cream, please. I will take it. But Holly you brought up a great point which was that I think part of it’s slide into irrelevance was that frozen yogurt became a really big deal in the 1990s people thought it was healthier.
You know chains like Froyo TCBY and places like that that got really really big And that wasn’t even like the make your own frozen yogurt kind of places like we have today It was just it was get frozen yogurt on a cone get it in a sundae and It was really helped more than anything that made Baskin-Robbins seem like a less desirable option to a lot of people and you know Of course today like I said you’re most often if you’re gonna find them you’re not gonna find them as a standalone store you’re gonna find them in a food court or a place like
of all places Dunkin’ Donuts. They have one right down the street from where I live, in fact. And it just doesn’t have the allure that it used to have. All my friends in Memphis know. The one Baskin Robbins in Cardiaville. We are all like, not every time we go down there, but quite frequently when we go back home to Memphis, we’re going to end up at that Baskin Robbins.
Well, here’s another one that you guys may or may not remember, and that is Crystal Clear Pepsi. So we talked about New Coke in our last episode, and that wasn’t really familiar to either of you, but Crystal Clear Pepsi, do you remember that? I do remember it. All right. So what do you remember about Crystal Clear Pepsi? It was a pretty big deal when they launched it. I don’t remember. We tried it it was OK because it was new. We put Jolly Ranchers in them, I think, just to watch the color change. ⁓
It didn’t last too long, I don’t think, did it? I mean, it hung out longer than… It was probably a year or two that you could easily find it, and then after that it was probably more of like a niche item. Yeah. If available at all. Yeah, I don’t remember it lasting very long, but I do remember it. I just remember the huge ad campaign they did for it, was it the Van Halen music or something like that? was some kind of big rock song that they were playing along with it.
⁓ There was, was a big marketing push. mean, they pushed this thing, like it was the future of soft drinks. The idea that you could have cola that was clear, like Sprite, you know? And ⁓ it really, didn’t taste that different than regular Pepsi, but it felt different because it was just, it looked and it had a different viscosity to it, I guess. I don’t know. But ⁓ it was definitely a fad that didn’t.
hang around too long and I think even when they tried to bring it back people haven’t been too interested in it. Did you ever have it? I don’t remember crystal clear Pepsi. I remember when they turned Pepsi blue. yeah. I remember Pepsi blue because I would always I would take a can with it like my mom would pack it in my lunch and ⁓ I would always this is kind of gross but I would always do the thing where you’re you know when you’re swishing mouthwash and you like tilt your head back and I’d be like look guys it’s blue!
I was in an amateur school, cut me some slack. Pepsi flavored mouthwash, wow. They’re missing a market there. My son the other day was like, he’s 12, and he was lecturing me on Coca Cola Black, which he can’t possibly have ever had because it came out like 10 or 15 years ago, but it was Coca Cola infused with coffee. And it was absolutely terrible. I remember a friend invited me to try one when she got like a four pack of them and…
I thought it was one of the worst drinks I’ve ever had in my life, but somehow he is aware of it without ever having drank it. So sometimes these brands can really stick around a lot longer than you realize. Well, I wanted to include a brand that Holly has an affinity for. And so I thought, why not Hello Kitty? So Holly, tell us a little bit about Hello Kitty. So Hello Kitty, I was definitely a Hello Kitty girl growing up. I had like these little
I’m sure they’re still in my parents attic somewhere, but they were like these little plastic toys and I would play with them and they would have like different themes. So there was like a bunny one or like she would be tan because she’s in like at the beach and stuff. She was just in everything too. And she’s still around. I remember we were, I we were in Kansas City last year for our best practice summits and we went to the, the market, the farmers market. think I
think that there’s a Hello Kitty store in the little shopping area down there we went into. So if we go for next time we go best practice on it, we’ll definitely have to go hit up the Hello Kitty store. Well, I do remember there used to be a Sanrio store in the Nashville mall because my brother played soccer growing up and so we would travel a lot and oftentimes it was to places like Tupelo in Nashville because they were within.
reasonable driving distance to Memphis and so they had a Sanrio store and I remember like every time we would go I would beg my parents to go into the store and for a while I kind of fell off of it because I was like that’s so immature and childish but like now I’m back on it and so like now my mom she’s always got a go-to for like a gift like a Christmas gift or
Like a birthday present she already she knows she knows she’s got to get the Hello Kitty fix in for you We we went to California a couple of Christmases ago and my kids wanted to go to the Sanrio stores and to the Hello Kitty Cafe So I got to go there were a bunch of them out there. So we did all of that I Got to learn a lot more about Sanrio than I ever knew Sanrio for listeners that don’t know is the brand Hello Kitty comes from Hello Kitty’s just the most prominent character because she was the first character
And she’s not a cat, she’s a girl that looks like a cat, right? Isn’t there some mythology about that with her? I don’t know, I think that’s just a myth that somebody came up with. I pretend I do not see things when it comes to that. But like, yeah, I feel like a lot of the other characters have become a lot more popular recently too, like ⁓ Cinemarole. That’s who my kids really like, My Melody and Koromi are also pretty popular.
Pochaka was getting up there. He was always like, when I was a kid, he was one of my favorites too. He’s the little white dog with the black ears. I thought he was so cute. My kids like Pom Pom Purrin, which, that I know all this tells you that I really did go to these stores because I get to hear all about them. I am so excited. Eventually Kyle and I, which Kyle is my husband’s name, ⁓ we plan on going to Japan and I’m so excited for all the other cuties.
Yeah, I’m so excited. Well, we used, we were playing a game when we were driving around in California called Is There a Sanrio Character for It? and my son or daughter would just name some absurd combination of things that we would look on the web to see if there was, in fact, ⁓ some kind of character that matched that description and most of the time there was. all weird characters, I am partial to the tooth.
can’t remember his name, but he’s just a tooth. He’s so cute, I just love him. Well, just as Pokemon has weird monsters that are key rings or piles of garbage or ice cream cones or things like that. Chandeliers. tea cups, know, tea kettles. Sanrio has a character for just about everything, too. well, another adjacent brand to that, especially if you’re going to be going to Japan, is PlayStation. So PlayStation
After Sony ⁓ kind of fell into a little bit of irreverence ⁓ following the ⁓ trying to capture the music scene, they got into the video game world and they really came on strong with the PlayStation. And there’s a fun history behind that of ⁓ being spurned by Nintendo who they’ve been co-developing this technology with and Nintendo decided to pull out. And Sony said, but we’ll beat you at your own game. And they really did. I mean, they launched the PlayStation in 1995 and it went up, become a huge global success. But
What do we know about PlayStation? You said you play yours all the time. I’ve got a PlayStation 4 and 5 and many other of the older systems as well. And what does PlayStation mean to you, Holly? I I grew up playing PlayStation. Like that was what my brother, I mean, I did eventually have my own Xbox 360, but after that I did get back into PlayStation. So like that’s what me and my brother would play a lot growing up. I remember like there’s this one really obscure
semi-violent, I probably shouldn’t have been playing it that young, but like it’s called Fur Fighters and you’re like these little stuffed animals and you’re trying to get their babies back and stuff and then I would play The Sims, specifically Cast Away on my brother’s PlayStation and I would always get mad because he would never let me save it on his memory card because that was like precious real estate for him.
So a lot of like beyond what you do today, even just growing up as part of childhood, part of just thinking about like life with your brother. Yeah. And like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro and like having to be like, John, can you come play this part for me? can’t do it. Stuff like that. And of course, I have a lot of connections to any video game brand because I worked at a video game store for a while and my hobby is writing about video games. I let you trash. You didn’t grow up in a house with boys, right? Did you?
Oh, I had brothers. Okay. But I guess I think about it you have daughters now. Yeah. Yeah. But but was PlayStation really a big deal to you guys? Not so
my dad’s he played more of the ⁓
the Sony, not PlayStation, what was the other one? Like the Xbox or the Nintendo GameCube or Nintendo Switch or anything like that? Atari? No. No? Okay. I thought it was… There are others, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, yeah? Okay. I think I remember that one. Anyway, played a lot on my desktop and it was always like Madden Click Ball or baseball. I mean, it was sports stuff that I didn’t care about at the time. Golf.
my gosh, you play golf for hours on that thing. But no, we didn’t really get into it. I didn’t play a whole lot of video games. I my brother did a little bit. We did play Nintendo, like the old school Nintendo for hours. Sega Genesis. Yes, Sega Genesis was the… That was the one. I, the Hedgehog was my favorite. I played that a lot and I still like playing that one. Still every once in a while. We just, and we did an episode on Sega Genesis for the marketing gateway not that long ago. Yeah. ⁓
So we played a lot of that on and off, but we weren’t a really big gamer household. Nowadays, though, we’re starting to get into it a little bit more. We’ve got a Nintendo Switch and Xbox at home, and I’d be playing some dumb game on there. My kids are coming home, and they’re like, who are you? Like, mom’s turning into a gamer. I’m like, not really.
My wife has recently, she’s got a Switch and she’s been playing, she likes farming games, so she’s been playing them on there and it’s become her obsession lately and I never thought I would see that day come. You know, I get the most joy out of beating my kids at a game, so I will tear them up at Mario Kart. Be sure to click, I get the most joy out of beating my kids, Holly. That could be our promo for this episode. You gotta keep them in line.
That’s how we are with my nephew. We gotta teach them you can’t always win and you gotta remember. That’s right. It teaches them competitive and how to lose nicely. exactly. Well, I want to throw in a St. Louis brand here. So, Emu’s Pizza. I didn’t grow up eating Emu’s Pizza. I moved here when I was 10 or 11. So, I can’t stand the stuff personally. My theory is you had to grow up eating it to like it. But what is your thoughts on Emu’s Pizza? I grew up eating it.
So I like it. It doesn’t bother me. My husband hates it. Actually, he doesn’t mind it. He just doesn’t like the Provel cheese. If we order it, either have to order it blended with the mozzarella or just mozzarella. He does not care for what’s up, but he didn’t grow up here. Of course, I don’t mind it. It’s natural to us, but I hate to say it. I do like the blend. I will give them that.
So Provel cheese is ⁓ a provolone and mozzarella. They put anything else in there? Swiss? Yeah, it’s. It’s this really distinctive, strong tasting cheese. And ⁓ it’s one of those things that if you like it, great. But most people, when they come and try St. Louis style pizza, it is not their thing. And Emose is the brand that they try. Holly, you’re not from around here. what are your thoughts on Emose? They have good chicken. OK. They’re chicken tenders.
according to Kyle are pretty good. I do not like the pizza. I am very much a extra sauce kind of person when I order pizza. So the cheese on a cracker style is not for me. One of my friends really likes it. Like we tried it when we first moved up here and they helped us move and at the time buying you some pizza was that’s always that was like top tier. So we got like
Kyle’s stepdad got ordered it for us and we tried it like literally day one in St. Louis pretty much and it was not every one. What about the toasted ravioli? Is that I mean I know they have it not the best around but it is it’s still good. I don’t think we tried the toasted ravioli I think we just tried the pizza at the time.
And then Kyle, his work will sometimes order it in and that’s how he tried like the chicken tenders, but neither of us have been too urged to go back at all. Because it’s just not our style. Yeah. I mean, he likes a thin crust, but he still likes a sauce. But I like a nice padded crust with some extra sauce.
Just be thankful you’re not around. I don’t think they’re around anymore. Cecil Whittaker’s Pizza, is another, are they still around? Yeah, they were another St. Louis chain that was even worse than Emo’s. So, sorry, any Cecil Whittaker’s fans, but. They had a bigger menu, though. You can get a lot of other things there. We used to go there. I think they had like specials on Wednesdays or something. We used go every Wednesday and have price or something. I don’t know, but it wasn’t bad. was, had, their other options were pretty good. But I will say, I do like Emo’s salads. Their salads are pretty good.
which you wouldn’t necessarily care for because it’s loaded with meat. The problem with the curse of the vegetarian is you can’t eat salad as meat in it. So just have to eat boring old regular salad. also here in St. Louis, have, we’re a big sports town. I’m not a big sports person, there, there definitely, I’ve been to a Cardinals game. I’ve been to, I actually, don’t think I’ve been to a Blues game. Now that I’m thinking about it. I think I’ve been to college hockey, but not.
to the actual blues. I’ve been in the arena. just don’t think I’ve actually been there for a game, but definitely, you know, we’re aware of the blues. mean, you know, the blues perennially never could win the Stanley Cup and then finally did one year and haven’t since. But so big sports town. You’re more into sports than I am Trish. What do you think of the Cardinals? What do you associate with the Cardinals? Oh, well, just home because
It’s St. Louis and we have great Cardinal fans and you know, I know the last few years things haven’t been quite as exciting at the stadium as they were, know, when we had the choir and I mean all of the big guys pools and just a ton of it. mean, I don’t know the players as much as I used to because I haven’t after COVID kind of faded out a little bit of going to the games but
Sounds like the making of come back, I hope. I mean, I’m more of a football person. I love football. and I- And yet you live in St. Louis where we’ve gotten rid of two football teams. We’re not doing great guys here. We got to step up again. But I did hear that possibly they’re going to rename the Missouri football team to- ⁓
the minor group that we have here. The Battle Hawks, the arena football team. So I think they’re talking about naming them the football team of Missouri now that Casey is moving out of state, technically. we’ll see. We’ll see. lot of people here in St. Louis have become Chiefs fans in recent years. ⁓ Chiefs are still playing in Missouri right now. ⁓
They’re moving to Kansas, aren’t they? moving, it’s only I believe about 15, 20 minutes away from where their stadium is now, but it is over, I’m pretty sure over the Missouri state line. It’s in Kansas now, right? Yeah, Kansas City being a bi-state area, that’s pretty easy to do. Yeah, and I think what, 2032, 2031, five years or so they announced it, so we’ll see. I would love, love to get to another game in Arrowhead before it’s gone though. That would be great. Well,
You know, I worked at Bush Stadium one summer, actually the summer before I started working here at RPG. I worked at Bush Stadium. So I got to see the Cardinals from really different point of view, which was, well, they just get the game over so I can go home. Sometimes it would go to overtime for multiple innings. So I wouldn’t get out of there for a long time. And it was pretty obnoxious because it was also really hot a lot of times. So I got over the Cardinals pretty quick after that. Kind of like my dislike of Black Friday. You know, once you live on the other side of it, you just don’t.
get as caught up in the excitement of it anymore. Holly, how about you? What do you think when you think of Cardinals? ⁓ I mean, I’m not too much of a sports person, but I have been to a couple of Cardinals games within the last year or so at this point. honestly, it’s one of those things where it’s like, I’m not like, obviously I’m going to watch the game because that’s what you’re going for. But I’m going also because like
It’s an inexpensive way to go out, but also just, and I think I talked about this last time we did an episode of three, the three of us a little bit, but like the vibes in the arena are just like, don’t know. It’s exciting. Yeah, it’s exciting. if you’re not so much like a sports fan, like being there with the people that like are.
is like, and it’s the same thing where I like a friend of ours has taken us to a couple of like wrestling shows where it’s like, I don’t care about wrestling as a sport, regardless of whether it’s, you know, how you want to see it. like being in the arena and like being there with the people that actually like really care and like this is like super important to them. It’s like
It’s the energy that just gets to you and it’s so exciting and it’s is kind of fun. It is fun to go. I like to go for the energy like you said, the food, the hot dogs, the drinks, all the junk, the nachos, the whole experience. I got my one at all. The nachos at Bush Stadium are crazy. If you have not gotten the nachos, do it because they’re so there’s it’s like twenty dollars, but it’s this big old box.
and it’s so good. is good. It is good. Well, I will tell you, I worked at Bush Stadium that summer, as I mentioned, and one thing I did learn when the Cardinals and the Cubs played, and that is, by the way, when St. Louis really turns out in red and they really want to make sure that the Cubs fans feel a little bit singled out wearing their blue and white, but the Cubs fans are better tippers. And the way I learned that was by, you know, selling them food and they would always give me
you know, more than the Cardinals fans expected to pay. And they would tell me to keep the change because they were used to paying more up in Chicago. I was just going say that because… And I would tell them and they go, oh, that’s okay. Just keep it. Because, you know, in their mind, that was what it cost. $14 is what it cost for a beer, you know, $12 for a pretzel or whatever else. So I did make good tips that week, at least. But yeah, it is nice because at St. Louis, do have one of a lot of the things that we have to do out here are inexpensive. They try to make it…
reasonable for most folks that are in our area. You know, you’ll have our occasional specialty game or whatever, but that is nice that it’s very family oriented. And if you go on a theme night, I think like we went to Pride night and Hello Kitty night last year and both times, granted we were pretty high up, but like you still have a pretty good view of the field and tickets were only like $30 for where we were sitting.
And that included not only like your seat, of course, but also like the little thing that they would give out for theme night. So I think for both of those, was just a jersey that was, you know, to the theme of the evening. But, know, but I mean, like $30 and like, yeah, probably like cheap, cheaply made. They probably paid like two bucks for it. But I mean, it’s a jersey. I can wear it and it’s exciting and it’s cool.
Now I have a Cardinals jersey that has the Hello Kitty bow or like the pride flag, like lining it. like, that’s just, it’s fun. It’s fun to get swag. Well, it just points out that, you know, part of the appeal of sports is not just going to watch the game. It’s the whole experience of it. And I think the Cardinals organization understands that better than many of the sporting organizations around the country, because they really get into it here. And, you know, they even built
ballpark village, which is a whole other thing where people can have other experiences and they really get it. know, part of our appeal, I think in St. Louis, this Bush Stadium continues to just be right downtown. They rebuilt it over the old one, but they never moved it. They kept it right there where it was visible and you drive right by it. I drive by it every day when I come into the office. So it’s front and center. It’s not like in other towns where it’s kind of on the edge of town or kind of, you know, buried behind, you know, less desirable areas.
It is right there in the heart of the city and they take it very seriously here. It’s also really easy to get to, especially for us on the Illinois side, because you can just jump on the… I think it shocked my mom when she came and we went to Hello Kitty Night. It was just right there. It was just right there on the Metrolinx. It was so easy and I think she was just shocked at how easily accessible it was with public transport.
Well, as dull of a game as think baseball is, think the Cardinals do an admirable job of, I mean, they pull people from hundreds of miles to come to Cardinals games and they do an admirable job of making that a great experience. Well, I want to ask about one more thing as we wind down here and that is some of that’s coming up here in stores pretty soon. So the Christmas stuff’s all gone. ⁓ Valentine’s Day stuff’s up. That won’t be up for very long.
But then after Valentine’s Day comes Easter candy. And with Easter candy comes the Cadbury chocolates, which I don’t know why they’re associated with Easter here in the United States, in Europe, and especially in Britain, where they’re from. They are associated all year round. But ⁓ Cadbury, the chocolate, especially the chocolate cream eggs will be out. And I know Holly’s a big fan. So I wanted to ask Holly, tell us a little bit about Cadbury. And I want to mention Holly has family from England. So it’s additionally
interesting to hear her talk about it because she has a different connection than most of us do. So, I mean, like, obviously, I’m not, this might be controversial, I’m not too into the chocolate eggs. Okay. I used to be more so like when I was a kid. But like, as I’ve gotten older, it’s just the inside is just a little too much. So like, I think like, category as a whole, for me is
Also, because like you said, my dad is from England. of course, like we go over there and we get the chocolates and stuff. so it’s nostalgic in a way. And I also remember when I was a kid and I’ve been every the last couple of times that we’ve been back over there, I’ve been begging my dad to take me back. But it’s Cadbury World. And it’s like, ⁓ not an amusement park, but it’s like
kind of sort of yeah it’s like it kind of goes through like the process of making the chocolate and stuff and ⁓ so like it’s just it’s one of those things that’s like it’s always been around for me and I every time we go you can bet half my suitcase is can’t wait and I’m praying that they don’t they don’t pull me aside in customs ⁓
How about you Trish? do you, Cadbury, mean anything special to you? Uh, it just, like you said, reminds me of Easter. I always enjoyed getting them, and they were messy and they were fun to play with as a kid, but like, I don’t necessarily remember like thinking, oh this was my favorite thing in my basket, but I do remember getting them. I remember the commercials more than anything, the bunnies, the bunnies and the lion pretending to be a bunny.
all the different little animals that they had. So yeah, I I remember more of the marketing port than caring necessarily about the actual candy. But when you see it though, it does bring back memories of childhood from Easter. And I think it’s so interesting that if you go to the UK, I mean, you can buy Cadbury chocolate all year round and it’s actually…
different in England than it is in the United States. And the United States is made under contract, I think, by the Hershey company. ⁓ It’s not the same. It tastes different. And when you have it in England, it’s creamier. It’s not quite as sweet, but it’s sweet in a different way, right? Wouldn’t you say? I mean, it’s… From what I’ve heard, I don’t know how true this is, so don’t quote me on it. But I think what the difference is is in England, they use more milk in the chocolate.
whereas in America it’s more like cocoa. Right. The Why would you change it, I wonder? It might have to do with the ingredients. They have higher regulations in a lot of European countries for chocolate and what it can be than we do here. As the words were coming out of my mouth, I was like, well, this is America. Every time I go to England, I load up on candy there and bring it home because otherwise we have to go to World Market to pay a premium there.
⁓ There is something different about it. And I think the fact that in England, it’s like Hershey’s is a brand that’s year round here in the United States. It is so strongly associated with Easter ⁓ is an interesting point about marketing. Well, let me let’s close out by talking about candy in general. So, you when I was a kid, we would go trick or treating and we would get all kinds of weird candy that I would never see any other time of year. And I’m talking about things like Zagnat bars or Chico sticks or ⁓ zero bars or
Good and Plenty is the worst candy ever. I hate licorice. things like that. They were strange candy you just didn’t see any other time of year. What kind of candies do you guys remember that aren’t around anymore but that were really meaningful to you growing up? You know, I wouldn’t say it was meaningful, but it always caught me off guard.
Cow tails, yeah Yeah Yeah Cracker Barrel. Yeah, Cracker Barrel would have them for sure. But I thought those were the weirdest things. And as a child you’re like, how do you know? Seriously, but it was a weird texture. didn’t care for it.
are so many different, the Pop Rocks, those are still around from then, but those were fun to play with. Hide some of your brothers came here in a serial or something and have them freak out, but that was cool. ⁓ What was the other, ⁓ the Bubble Gum, the Bubble Gum Packs. Like Bubble Yum or Hubba Bubba or things like that. Shredded Bubble ⁓ the Big League Chew, which yeah, you can still get that stuff too, even though it seems less and less relevant now that.
⁓ baseball players don’t really dip anymore, chewing tobacco, but you still buy the bubble gum version. Yeah, remember shoving a wad, and you’d eat the whole bag, and then you’d have this big wad of gum in your mouth and couldn’t talk. We loved candy cigarettes. There were two different types that we could get. One was the ones that were just little sugar sticks with a little red tip, but then there were other ones that were bubble gum that had a paper wrapper and powdered sugar, and you could blow, they’d puff out smoke.
So we yeah, we had I don’t know if those are legal to sell anymore, but we definitely like them as kids They are somewhere because my friend did get me a pack of the sugar stick ones. Yes, like literally like last year, so they’re somewhere. They’re somewhere and not funny like the things that we never think about like Marketing these days or giving kids candy
I learned the hard way in high school not to give your girlfriend’s parents bubble gum cigars because they just assumed that that meant you were gonna give them some unpleasant news, especially if they were blue or pink. I just thought they were cool. Yeah, everybody hung out handing out those candy cigars. Yeah, before gender reveal parties there were bubble gum cigars to announce the sex of. Pink or blue. Any candies you remember, Holly? I mean…
For the most part, it’s pretty much the same, but I do remember the, me and my brother were obsessed with pixie sticks for one. don’t, I’m sure they’re still around, but I’m sure they would send me in the cardiac arrest at this point. But like pixie sticks, used to go funeral for those. Like anytime we would go, my mom would go to, she would drive me to Michael’s. my payback for going to Michael’s was a pack of pixie sticks.
And then also those really long big The mega ones or yeah, and like I also remember The little juice bottles that were in like the little juice in the wax bottles Yeah, yeah, me and my brother love those. We like those too. My kids actually tried them from time to time They like them and I’m like now I’m thinking like how did we like this stuff like literally just whack
Well, the one candy that I will never require my children to ever try are circus peanuts, which are these old like marshmallowy orange awful candy, ⁓ ribbon candy and stuff like that that old people used to offer us were also pretty terrible, but circus peanuts were the worst. ⁓ in England, I mean, I’m sure they have them over here too, but I just don’t really see them as much. like doing like the bags of candy is a little or at least used to be a little bit more.
we were over there and they would do chocolate mice and they were just pieces of big old pieces of chocolate in the shape of a mouse and I just I just love those. Fantastic well Holly after hearing about your love for pixie sticks and also your meltdowns and the toy aisle I’m getting a picture of your childhood that’s really different from the person I know today so
It’s been fun and Trish, it’s always fun to catch up with you too. Even though we’re closer to the same age, we’ve had very different experiences. Well, I think really to kind of close out what is valuable about having the conversations like these is just to remember that these things that we intersect with, that we buy, that we use, that we think about, that we obsess about sometimes, they have these meanings to us that go a lot deeper than just…
⁓ I went to a store and thought about what kind of detergent I wanted to buy and picked up detergent. I thought about what kind of toothpaste I wanted. mean, we could go into brands like that. We probably would have just as strong of opinions about those things as we would about some of these more fun things that we’ve talked about. And so, know, at the heart of marketing, a lot of times is not just telling people, my product because it has these features. It’s about finding something that connects with them. And, you know, as we talk about brands and we think about some of these things that
have had such a formative impact on us. I just point out like it goes really, really deep and that we can sit here as adults and talk about things that happened, you know, many years ago, decades ago, ⁓ and still remember them so vividly really speaks a lot to their power. So thank you both for joining me. It’s been great talking with you all and ⁓ we will be back with more episodes of course of Marketing Gateway. ⁓ I’m Sean St. Louis and thanks again Trish and thanks again Holly and we will see you next time.
Leave a Reply