Naebody in Particular

late last month the formula we’ve used since month one to supplement mommy milk — similac sensitive r.s. — all of a sudden disappeared from the shelves, without a trace.

we tried all the usual stores — empty shelves. the lady sparkler and i both went online to the manufacturer’s site, and it was gone like it never existed in the first place.

after about two weeks, the empty spaces on the shelves suddenly filled up with a new flavor of formula in a baby puke green color.

after two more hours of digging — er, googling — it appears that the new flavor (similac sensitive for spit up) is actually just a re-branded old flavor.

only a different product name. and a completely different color. and a different safety seal. and no reference to the previous brand.

how did we know? i had to compare the UPC codes off a bottle of the old formula.

now, i’m not much of a marketer, but if they had kept any one thing from the previous design — keep the red bottle, keep the product name, keep a reference to old product — we wouldn’t have missed a beat and would have kept buying the “new” stuff like lemmings off a cliff.

seriously, people. marketing 101.

P.S. sparklet is just about off formula entirely (and mommy phased out of pumping late last month). starting this week we’ve got her on a mix of milk and lactaid — the latter being a holdover over from similac sensitive r.s. being lactose free.

once she gets used to the whole milk thing, we’ll start phasing out the lactaid, and viola — high cholesterol, full lactose baby.