It’s getting close to October – to Halloween – and Cadbury has released a new, Halloween-themed Creme Egg. It’s like the ones they sell around Easter – only the gooey insides are green instead of yellow. Forgive me. I like these chocolate eggs – no matter the color of the insides – and can’t resist grabbing a handful when I see the display box at the supermarket. But I noticed that more fit in my hand now than used to. The Cadbury Creme Egg went from being about the same size as a normal chicken egg – to the size of a robin’s egg. It’s about a third smaller now – but the price remains the same.
Watch this video; see for yourself:
Similarly chocolate bars – which have been downsized, too. They are about a third smaller in terms of overall dimensions – and also, thinner. Have you noticed? (Here’s a recent news story about that.)
Of course, the price of chocolate bars hasn’t gone down, either. You pay more for the same – which means, you pay more for less – and they hope you’re too dumb to notice. Or, perhaps, they are counting on the psychological angle; that it is preferable to see “price stability” – even to the extent of willfully ignoring that you’re getting less and less of whatever the item is and paying the same (or, in some cases, more).
I take OsteoBiFlex – a supplement that’s supposed to help keep your joints limber. Just bought a bottle – the same size bottle. But inside the opaque, deep blue bottle – half empty! Not even cotton to fill the air gap.
I admit it’s clever. Much less clumsy, at any rate, than simply jacking up the price. Corporate America is nothing if not clever. Lawyers are often disparaged as shysters, but Corporate America is the true master of the art of shysterism. They get us to refer to their ads as “sponsored content.” They advise that we’ll “learn more” (really? Gosh! It’s like a free college course…) if we click on said “sponsored content.”
They can – and do – sell us anything.
The latest being inflation.
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