RETAIL RANDOMS

BEFORE YOU GO: APRIL FOOLS DAY

IS IT NEARLY APRIL FOOLS DAY ALREADY?

WITH APRIL FOOLS DAY ONLY A MATTER OF HOURS AWAY, WE THOUGHT WE WOULD SHARE SOME OFTHE MORE CONVOLUTED ATTEMPTS AT MAKING FOOLS OF US ALL...

CASE STUDY 1:

THE £182 REED DIFFUSER THAT MAKES YOUR HOUSE SMELL LIKE A DISTILLERY

If you’ve ever been inside a whisky distillery, you’ll remember the unforgettable aromas – but how about replicating that smell in your living room?

World Whisky Day has apparently announced the launch of The Dunnage, a limited-edition reed diffuser inspired by the “intoxicating aroma of a dunnage warehouse”.

The team at World Whisky Day allegedly visited over 100 dunnage warehouses to find just the scent they were after.

For maximum effect, buyers are advised to “wear a blindfold and submerge their bare feet in a pile of loose stones and earth and hit play on our curated ‘The Dunnage’ Spotify playlist as an immersive aural accompaniment”.

The final clue that we’re all being taken for a ride: The Dunnage costs £182.40.

CASE STUDY 2:

THE WORLD’S FIRST MALTESERS CAKE DEVELOPED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Can taste ever be truly digitised? So opens the press release from Mars Wrigley. Alarm bells are ringing. It goes on to say Mars collaborated with Google Cloud to develop the world’s first ever Maltesers AI Cake. An attempt at humour – “Giving a whole new meaning to the term ‘tech crunch’!” – only serves to raise the hackles further.

Allegedly, a “top Google Cloud engineer” created a machine learning model that used hundreds of existing recipes from traybakes to scones to develop the new cake creation called the Maltesers® AI Cakes (4d6172730a). Which, for Brits not well versed in binary-coded values, is hexadecimal for ‘Mars’.

The AI Cake is technically speaking is a ‘cakie’ (a hybrid between a cookie and a cake), including both AI-generated cake and cookie elements. The treat is topped with – you’ve guessed it – Marmite-infused buttercream frosting.

Naturally, Mars then called in 2020 Great British Bake Off Winner Peter Sawkins to create a competing baking concoction of his own and play his part in the #BakeAgainstTheMachine showdown.

You get the idea. It was clearly a slow day in the Mars press office.