SOYJOY

One of the perks of going to school in Greenwich Village (besides the daily live jazz in Washington Square) is the free samples marketers give out to try to tap into the buying power of New York students—they clearly didn’t get the memo that we are poor and as such are not buying much these days…

Today the giveaway was a bar of raisin almond SOYJOY Now, I am a big fan of meal replacement bars. Luna, Lara, ThinkThin, Cliff, Odwalla, Zone—you name it, I’m their target demographic. But the aforementioned bars all have something that SOYJOY lacks: they actually taste good! SOYJOY was so gross I spit out the first bite, decided that I was being unfair, choked down the second bite and then threw the rest of it away. It was what I imagine badly flavored cardboard tastes like. While it did not have the fake sugar chemical taste of some of the bars (admittedly a refreshing change), it was chalky, bland and even a little bitter. Yuck. I’m sorry SOYJOY, but it was. Really, really yuck.

Now, here’s my question. Was the raisin almond their best tasting product or did the marketing manager choose to give it out for different reasons? I would have imagined that SOYJOY was trying to put their best foot forward and attract new customers—which would argue that the other flavors are even worse! But on the other hand, if they are targeting poor students who will likely not go out and buy their products anyway, were they just trying to get rid of the gross-tasting inventory and in the process fortuitously give a sample away to someone who was born without tastebuds who would then become their new brand ambassador? Only time will tell I guess.