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The Strangest Foods Companies Have Ever Made
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May 8, 2025
Weird History Food is going to get you into the Strangest Food Marketing Campaigns. Commercials and ads are no longer enough in a world habituated to shift its attention in the first three seconds of watching videos. Many companies have ditched standard marketing campaigns for the unconventional, relying on surprise experiences to create buzz, drive publicity, and increase revenue.
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Today, we're going to take a look at some of the strangest food marketing campaigns in recent history
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In an ambitious attempt to surpass the Guinness World Record for the largest popsicle ever created
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Snapple delivered 17.5 tons of their newest flavor to the streets of New York City
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The Kiwi Strawberry Snapsicle was so large, a crane was called in to help lift the monolith
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But scheduling a giant popsicle delivery for the middle of summer turned out to be an equally giant mistake
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The oppressive heat melted the mega popsicle before it could be pulled out of the truck
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creating a small wave of slush that flowed down 17th Street. Firefighters and police quarantined the scene, and the stunt was regarded as a bust
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We've come to accept that if we want to watch the Super Bowl for free, we're going to have to sit through some Pepsi commercials
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But the 1988 film Mac and Me crossed that delicate line into truly shameless territory
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It's a fairly blatant knockoff of the 1982 Steven Spielberg classic E.T.
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Except that instead of Reese's Pieces, the alien eats nothing but Coca-Cola and McDonald's
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Not only were products aggressively advertised, they were also central to the plot
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Drinking Coca-Cola saves Mac's life, and the plot convenes at a McDonald's
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And today, it's still considered to be one of the worst movies ever made
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Companies are constantly coming up with innovative ways to one-up the competition
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and stay fresh in the public's mind. Colgate, the toothpaste company, was hoping for a similar shift
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when they decided to get in on the frozen TV dinner market If the idea of buying food from a toothpaste company doesn exactly fill you with the warm and fuzzies well you not alone Colgate TV dinners were one of the biggest bombs
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in supermarket history. Brands are always trying to tickle people's feelings of nostalgia to sell their products
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which is precisely what Gerber was going for when it launched Singles by Gerber
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Instead of mushy peas and carrots found in its line of baby food, Gerber marketed complete mushy dinners
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for hip young singles. Unfortunately, the flavors, which included textureless beef burgundy
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ham casserole, beef with mushroom gravy, and sweet and sour pork, didn't do much for people
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Las Vegas restaurant Heart Attack Grill built brand awareness around the idea that its food
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may kill you and that you should trust them on that. Calories and cholesterol take center stage
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on a menu that features triple bypass burgers and the health conscious need not apply
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In 2012, an unidentified man was making his way through a triple bypass burger when he started
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complaining about chest pains. Customers and restaurant owner John Basso assumed the heart
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attack was a joke until it became evident the man was in distress. Basso may have been wearing a
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doctor's uniform, but he was ill-prepared to handle a genuine emergency. An ambulance was called
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and the mysterious patron recovered in a nearby hospital. At some point in every person's life
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we all wish we could smell like a Burger King. In 2015, the fast food giant partnered with Mark
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by Marc Jacobs and entered the beauty market with a Whopper-scented perfume. With subtle hints of
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ground beef and ketchup, Whopper perfume was an exclusive scent sold in Japan and only for one day
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