Stanford study: The humble potato chip and packaging language target class distinctions. (San Jose Mercury-News, 12/5/2011)
Excerpt: Potato chips are an ideal food for analyzing classes' differences in marketing because everyone eats them, no matter what their social class -- unlike beef jerky sticks and pork rinds, for instance, or imported caviar and Champagne.
And chips come wrapped in bags covered with cultural clues.
According to Stanford University Professor of Linguistics Dan Jurafsky, "The red-state and blue-state models of our nation are written on the back of every bag of potato chips."
Red-state chips: Hawaiian, Herr's, Lays, Tim's, Utz and...
Wise is a regional brand, which was popular in the Nelson household in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
So let's put the red-state/blue-state theory to the test.
Mom and Dad were lifelong Republicans. (Well, almost, as you'll see below.) In a mock election in Mrs. Johnson's 5th grade class at Jefferson Elementary School in late October 1960, I cast a vote for Richard Nixon, as did most of my classmates.
Bingo! We got a confirmation, folks.
But now that I'm older and Wise-less, living outside the potato chip's distribution area, I'm a blue-state potato chip fan. (Even Mom voted for an occasional Democrat in her later years -- and for Barack Obama with great enthusiasm in 2008. Credit Sarah Plain with an assist on that one.)
Stanford's blue-state chip selections include Boulder, Dirty, Popchips, Terra, Season's, and
A big favorite in the decidedly blue Nelson/Richard household.
So there you have it; the proof's in the pudding.
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