For those of you reading this in Las Vegas while revving up for the annual PPAI Expo, this is not necessarily meant as a warning. But then again, if lots of people happen to be making bad decisions this week, you don’t have to jump right in with them. It’s likely you were warned about being a lemming at some point in your childhood anyway, told by your parents not to be like the furry wild gerbils that mindlessly follow each other off a cliff to their death. But, for those of you prone to bad decisions regardless, take heart—the legendary lemming story is actually a myth.
So, what do lemmings have to do with promotional product safety? We’ve spoken before about the importance of doing a risk analysis for every product you source. One of the key criteria is the intended usage group: Who is the target audience for the product? As you know, safety standards are higher for products intended for children under 12 years old, and in some cases a general use product can change into a child-appealing one, based solely on decoration. But even your best efforts to evaluate and mitigate risk for your customer by sourcing responsibly and labeling properly can fail—if you’re dealing with lemmings.
Some products seem to just bring out the worst in human nature, and no amount of warnings will make any real difference. Take Tide laundry detergent pods, those “small but powerful” alternatives to traditional laundry detergent that are marketed as “a 3-in-1 breakthrough technology with highly concentrated detergent, stain remover and color protector.” Everyone knows they are for washing your clothes and not for eating. Everyone knows it doesn’t matter how much they look like a snack, or a candy, or an oversized Gusher. You shouldn’t eat them unless you’d like to throw up, lose consciousness, irritate your cornea, or yes, even die.
Then why would someone post a user review of the product as “TidePodsAreGood2Eat” last week on the Procter and Gamble Tide website saying, “This product is wonderful. Great taste. I love these! So much better than gushers! Love to fill my pizza and hot pockets with them! Would recommend!” Think this is some isolated crackpot? Think again. As far back as 2013, people were talking about eating Tide Pods, according to the site Know Your Meme. Sites like College Humor and The Onion got into the action with satire stories over the next couple of years, and then last March it peaked again when College Humor posted “Don’t Eat The Laundry Pods” on YouTube. That video now has more than 3 million views. In just the last couple of weeks, Twitter discussions have ramped up with some silly, and some odd memes about eating the pods, including baking Tide pods onto a frozen pizza. The day after Christmas, someone even reached out to the Gushers Twitter account and asked for a fruit snack shaped like a detergent pod. General Mills blocked that Twitter user from further discussions of the Betty Crocker candy.
While some may theorize that laundry pods could be the forbidden fruit to ponder of our time, the good news is most rational humans know they’re not to be eaten. In 2015, Tide’s parent company P&G added a “bitter taste” to detergent pods, and since added child-proof safety features to the pods’ packaging (though that does nothing once the pods are out of the package). All the manufacturers have added extensive warnings about locking up the pods if you share a house with someone who has Alzheimer's disease. While two children and six adults with cognitive impairment have died in the five years since the products were introduced, the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported the lowest number of cases of child exposure to laundry detergent pods (10,570) in 2017.
So, get out there this week and enjoy the industry’s largest trade show. Do your best to find something that is so safe, you can even sell it to a lemming. Just don’t be one yourself.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. You can find him still advising Global 500 Brands on promo product initiatives, working as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Follow Jeff on Twitter, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.