“Muffins” Stage Protest at Bloom Supermarkets
“Muffins” are staging a mock protest this week to promote Bloom supermarkets’ newest product Bloomberry Muffin Tops.
Four people dressed in muffin costumes will be out in force at Clemson University in Greenville, SC, and at the Bloom market in Anderson, SC, today, protesting the arrival of the new muffin tops. As a giant shopping cart, pulled by a truck, showcases the tops on parade, the costumed street team, known as the Coalition of Really United Muffin Bottoms, or C.R.U.M.B, will hand out 250 T-shirts and protest flyers to passersby.
The promotion is part of a three-day event to let customers know the Bloomberry Muffin Tops are replacing the chain’s popular Blueberry Jumbo Muffins. Similar stunts took place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“It’s about being fun and innovative,” said David Oakley, creative director at BooneOakley, an advertising agency, which is handling the promotion. “It’s keeping with Bloom’s perspective of doing things differently.”
Bloom is also promoting the product via a “defaced” billboard, which drives people to a microsite at http://www.crumbworldwide.org. The site features video, including a fictitious news trailer of a previous protest, threatened store sabotage, four muffin bottom interviews and a muffin bottom job retraining program. People can also watch the videos on YouTube. The campaign also includes a MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/muffinbottoms.
A note on the site reads, “We at C.R.U.M.B. are protesting the decision by Bloom Grocery Stores to discontinue their signature Blueberry Muffin in favor of selling Muffin Tops. We at C.R.U.M.B have something to say about that. We believe that selling one part of a muffin and not the other is discriminatory and inhumane. Even if we’re not really human.”
Bloom, a division of Food Lion, operates 61 stores in the southeast.
