Quaker Oats has Change of Heart - Now Fundamentalist Islamic Oats

Written by Chad Messer

Thursday, 12 June 2008

Quaker Oats Major Change In a move that is surprising Wall Street analysts and corporate watchdogs, the Quaker Oats mascot has announced his product will now be known as Fundamentalist Islamic Oats.

“The move was a long time in coming,” said Bill Jefferies, marketing director at PepsiCo, Quaker's parent company. “For those of us close to the Oats mascot, the early signs were there. He became increasingly withdrawn, lost interest in usual activities, and became fiercely independent and combative with those who espoused different opinions.”

The change became more obvious when the Quaker Oats mascot started to grow his beard long and the traditional buckled hat was replaced with a turban. This change in appearance, while innocent in and of itself, has advertisers worried.

“You can't have such a divisive image on a product in American supermarkets and expect sales to remain the same,” said Riley Stone, Marketing professor at Omaha State University. “When well-known celebrities like the Quaker Oats mascot have such a drastic change in how the public perceives them, there is always a monetary backlash.”

Perhaps no one knows this better than Uncle Ben of Uncle Ben's Rice, who was almost replaced as mascot in the late 1960s when he joined the Black Panther movement. “Middle America can't handle mascots that don't look and sound just like them,” Uncle Ben said during a media conference call. “Trix Rabbit? Long-eared honky. Keebler Elves? Midget honkys. Count Chocula? Gay honky. Hell, just look at what poor Aunt Jemima had to go through. Since she couldn't hide the beautiful brownness of her bottle, she had to dress up like a black Mammy just to sell damn syrup. Crackers ought to be ashamed.”

As hurtful as an image change can be to a corporation's bottom line, an obvious political shift is what is truly making stock prices plummet. Once known for his gentle live-and-let-live spirit and good humored smile, the Oats mascot made jaws drop last week when he announced via press release that he was issuing a jihad against Hebrew National Hot Dogs. Hebrew National Hot Dogs refused our request for an interview.

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