In Poland spelling is also tested in schools by means of dictations, with teacher reading the text aloud. Unlike in France, the texts are not meant to be beautiful, but difficult. There is even a national championship every year, where volunteers (in two categories, adults and children) try to write down the text, devised by the most devious linguists.
RE: Pantone Color of 2015 ...
And Pantone color 12-0752 is the shade of bananas you're most likely to buy, according to Mental Floss. I never cease to be amazed at the marketing tactics of grocers. Whoda' thunk so much psychology goes into marketing food. Then again, I suppose, all marketing is really psychology. Why do we really need more than one brand of salt or sugar or water ... it's all the same molecule.
Heimhenge said
RE: Pantone Color of 2015 ...And Pantone color 12-0752 is the shade of bananas you're most likely to buy, according to Mental Floss. I never cease to be amazed at the marketing tactics of grocers. Whoda' thunk so much psychology goes into marketing food. Then again, I suppose, all marketing is really psychology. Why do we really need more than one brand of salt or sugar or water ... it's all the same molecule.
The bananas we eat today are Cavendish, although there are over a thousand cultivars, and about 400 are grown commercially. We used to mostly eat Gros Michel bananas, but they were about wiped out by disease, and the Cavendisg was planted in the 1850s. The Gros was yellower, and tasted "banana-ier". The Cavendish is dying out to a disease, and won't be around much longer, some say.
Sugar ISN'T the same. Beet sugar and cane sugar are the same for coffee, but the crystalline form of cane sugar makes it better for making certain candies. But even packaged goods are mostly clones of competitors.
The president of Save-A-Lot said, "A typical grocer carries 100 types of mustard. We have two - brown and yellow." Save-A-Lot has about 1500 SKUs, Aldi has about 1500. the average supermarket 40,000. Instead of canned tomatoes in crushed, diced. chunks, and whole, from Hunt's, Red Gold, Del Monte, Heinz, Campbells, Del Fratelli, and a store brand, each in 3 sizes of cans (not including the #10 gallon can), which amounts to 84 different products to carry, you could just carry one size of Hunts, and keep most consumers happy. If you need more, buy two cans.
How many sizes and fragrances does Dawn come in? And if they came out with a banana fragrance Dawn, you'd soon see Joy and Palmolive with banana, and then the bargain dishsoaps, each one in multiple sizes. It takes four times as many man-hours of labor per sollar of sales at a supermarket versus what it takes at Aldi. Aldi is credited with chasing Walmart out of Germany, then our of Europe, and they're building share here.
I highly recommend Competing in Tough Times: Business Lessons from L.L.Bean, Trader Joe's, Costco, and Other World-Class Retailers , which has lots and lots of haerd data, and is heavily footnoted. I learned a lot. For instance, store brand doesn't always mean cheap. Costco's canned tuna is more expensive than supermarket brands, but it has become a best seller, because of customers who want better tuna.