General
2004-07-17 19:03:13
Dairy Queen's latest creation, the
Moolatte, is creating a stir. Aimed at drawing frapuccino lovers to DQ, the name sounds like
"mulatto".
Now, I must admit that, upon first hearing "Moolatte", my in-brain Napster engine turned on a Dean Martin rendition..."Moolatte, whoa-oh, Moolatte...oh, oh, oh, oh!" However, after seeing a couple of ads for the 600-calorie (moo, indeed) caffeine shake, I started thinking the word sounded a lot like "mulatto". Apparently, I'm not alone. Slate agrees, adding that Moolatte smacks of Aunt Jemima. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. But I'm a Canadian and perhaps less sensitive to the word than persons from other backgrounds. The CBC seems undecided about use of the word, too.
I thought that, perhaps, Dairy Queen hoped to gain media attention for its efforts, but, as of my press time, Google shows just 35 results for "moolatte + mulatto" -- mostly blogs -- and zero results in news stories. Did DQ expect an incident-free play-on-words in crowning the new beverage? Or are the company's PR directors kicking themselves for planning a media coup that has not come to fruition -- and that they could not hype themselves without facing political fallout? So far, it seems like few people are having a cow.
Update: see next installment in this saga -- Dairy Queen defends moolatte
(c) 2004 by Andrea Coutu. Vancouver Marketing Consultant. All rights reserved.
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