SunChips has it all

Why not serving on a bowl every once in a while?

At our recent times what we see is snack food businesses becoming 'straight', or something like that. Junk food kingdoms such as MacDonald's and Burger King are constantly adjusting their menus to provide healthier options to customers.

Nevertheless, Frito-Lay decided to adapt to the new times in other realms. It provided the world with something new for a snack food company: a compostable bag, or in other words, a degradable bag.

I'm a post marketing student, with background in design, and I was thrilled by this idea! It's ok that we may eat what we feel like, whenever healthy or not, but if we counteract the rubbish accumulation around the world, yeah, we can delay the search for another planet to live in the future (yeah, people think about that).

It started as loud as a stomp (this is not sarcasm, please note) with raving reviews, for example, one from Packworld.com, that would query if Frito-Lay wanted to be locked-in a 'compostable bag' category. A Facebook page for Frito-Lay's product, SunChips was also devised, and it's quite fun too.

Some months later, a setback in Frito-Lay's plans. Although the message of the chips package is clear,'This Bag Is LOUDER BECAUSE IT IS COMPOSTABLE', people massively opted out for a cleaner planet.

'The bag is too noisy.', customers claimed.

The bags, and the Frito-Lay products are not available everywhere in the world, for example where I am now, Australia. The fact is that a big market like US gonna go back to normal bags - although Canada keeps the new package. It would be a kick-start in a transformation of recycling habits, and the way people see packaging that goes to landfills. Everyone's attitude could change.

I think this is such a milestone that can't be ignored, and hopefully won't be for too long.

It is such an advancement, that, maybe, it is needed one step a time. As mentioned at the Green, environmental blog by the NY Times', the spokewoman for Frito-Lay declares 'Innovation is a journey'. Yes, it is, and it has proved so far.

How did you go on the interview?

I have been through many interviews. Of all kind. Retail, hospitality, marketing (the most), and few others I can't remember. It's the real thing for some people, for others not.

For me it's one of those moments that your life passes by in front of you. If you fail, you are out. Time for you to leave the stage. Give room for someone else.

Ok, i went too far, but sometimes...

Just to remind you, I have prepared and rehearsed many times, and was happily faced with positive 'uh-uh', 'yeah', 'very good'. On the end I haven't had the response I had hoped for.

It's disappointing, and everbody knows if you try, push it, you gain confidence, and you make it at 'extra time'.

A job is mostly what you put into it - once you are there, you will learn it the company's way, reproduce it, and if it goes standard, yes, you are cool. So why the drama?

You will do what the company demands. Jobs are mostly reproduction of what has been done. I agree that in the marketing position you are expected to win markets, achieve KPIs. Not all companies go the extra mile for champions - there are not so many 'olympic' workers outthere.

Scientific jobs are the real Herculean jobs! They are so many. These are the jobs to change the world, and qualification is all they are about.

I believe the world has a large amount of people that are keen, and enthusiastic to go the extra mile once they are given the opportunity (I'm counting the obvious academic background or work experience.)

I get embarassed by questions that I listened to so many times before in interviews, "have you disagreed with your boss?", "why you want this job?" among other examples.

Your job won't revolutionise my life, and I'm probably not the hero of the new millenium. I think here in Australia, 50% or more of the population do what they don't like to do, or didn't study to do so, according to a survey on Triple J, aussie radio.

The employer and I, we help each other. We might achieve our individual goals, if this is together, then it's amazing.

iHaveAProblem

Apple: customers can't avoid the temptation of having it.

Oh, Apple has not fixed the antenna on the new iPhone, and stopped giving free bumper cases for the iPhone 4 customers that still have problems with the antenna!

The new model of the Apple phone has got allegedly mistakes seen during design stage. The signal reception is a problem that has been addressed to Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and CEO, but not enough to stop producing the phone and lauching it, according to itnews post.

Other issues also have sufficed after iPhone hit the shops worldwide.

Was it a case for recall? Maybe not for a company that successfully sold so many phones all over the world in such a short space of time. It would be an impossible mission to accomplish.

What we can see is a behavioral attitude towards iPhone. People will buy it, for no specific reason. It is totally understandable. Is a bit difficult to understand how not to take other models instead, like XTC Hero, or the Motorola's DROID X, that surfed on the Apple's phone wave, but have several good factors to be them, a very good purchase.

The battle of smartphones will continue for a long time, but hopefully not so much to the customer's expense, if people compare plans, operating systems and telephone's carriers performance.

At the end, some would say, 'who cares? Give me my iPhone!'