Baloney Facemasks: Nostalgia Grab or the Real Deal?

They tell you to never play with your food, but that’s always been more of a guideline really. We’re all guilty of messing with food in one way or another. Sword fighting with a couple of popsicles, shooting pieces of popcorn into the hood of someone’s jacket, or folding up a piece of baloney and biting pieces off to see what kind of meat sculpture you can make. Like making a paper snowflake without the mess, only not as cute. Well, the brilliant minds at Oscar Mayer are no stranger to this activity, as they have launched a new skincare facemask inspired by their popular baloney. That’s right, you can now relive a treasured lunchtime activity for just a $5 payment on Amazon. This development caught my attention as it was the last type of marketing effort I would have expected from a company that provides a product people so regularly use. Employing the type of shock advertising usually reserved for companies marketing more controversial products made me question if everything was well in the deli meat kingdom of Oscar Mayer. 

           

To probe further I read this article from the Fortune website. The author Chris Morris seems to be in as much disbelief as the rest of us, using the first paragraph to assure us that yes, this is real. Morris goes on to discuss this product is the lovechild of a partnership between Oscar Mayer and Seoul Mama’s, a Korean skincare company. Soon after I finally sat back from the edge of my seat as Morris dropped the big reveal that the product will not be made of actual baloney stating, “It should go without saying, but just to be clear: You won’t actually be putting bologna on your face. The beauty mask just happens to be pink.” He went on to indicate that this is only the latest in a series of “whimsical” marketing efforts Oscar Mayer has made in hopes to garner some attention. Closing out with a quote from the seniors marketing analyst at Oscar Mayer, “Inspired by those who used to playfully make masks out of their bologna as kids, this product was born as a modern-day way to spark smiles for fans of Oscar Mayer and beauty enthusiasts alike. This is the latest in our brand movement to create work that feels more like pop-art and less like traditional commercial advertising.” 

The gist is, no one can believe this is real, a meat inspired facemask is the first of its kind, and it's due to Oscar Mayer wanting to set themselves apart from the competition. Oscar Mayer's value proposition has always been to create a better way to get food to everyone. Filling shelves with inexpensive conveniently packaged meat products. Keyword there is meat, and I have to say this cash grab of a gag product doesn’t fit into their mission statement one bit. 

The latest in their line of whimsical products going all the way back to a hotdog shaped drone that delivered deli meats in 2017, this newest addition to a marketing campaign based around whacky one-off products with little to know relevance to their popular items has all been a part of the company’s goal to distance themselves from their straight edge competitors and become the “cool uncle” of the meat industry. I wonder what they'll do next. A bratwurst toilet brush maybe? The challenge to stay relevant in a market of items that are all essentially the same amid entire factories of theirs closing and massive layoffs has made Oscar Mayer restless and triggered a mid-life crisis full of hot dog drones and baloney facemasks. The idea of taking a product and completely twisting its identity isn’t new or unique. Tons of companies do it but in much smarter ways. And while a baloney facemask serves as a cool call back to many of our childhoods at the end of the day the idea of actually putting meat on your face is just gross. 

A good example of putting a new twist on a classic

From a marketing standpoint I agree with the nostalgia angle. But rather than create a physical product I would have suggested a commercial. Picture this: a group of children enjoying a lunch together, messing with their pieces of baloney creating all kinds of funny shapes and laughing about it together. Flash forward decades later, one of the kids from the table is now an adult and dealing with their own child who we can surmise is somewhat of a picky eater. The adult picks up a piece of baloney and partakes in the same activity of their youth biting and shaping the piece into something fun. The child sees this and is immediately invested in doing the same. Showing the satisfaction of the adult having quelled a picky eater and the child who has now discovered a nostalgic activity from their parent’s past makes for an advertisement that can be enjoyed and related to by all generations. 

As of today, adverts for the baloney facemask rank among some of the lowest viewed out of all of Oscar Mayer’s promotional material, the product page on Amazon sitting at a whopping 43 reviews since launch. I’ve learned that weirder isn’t always better. Some companies should know their limits and stick to what they’re known for. Sometimes consistency is the best recipe.