JKR

Hitchcock called them McGuffins – plot devices that acted as catalysts for a story, but were in themselves not as important to the plot as they appear. The briefcase whose contents are never revealed, but which nevertheless causes all the trouble in Pulp Fiction, is a classic McGuffin. So, it seems, is the story of a laser which Kellogg’s might use to brand its logo onto individual flakes to mark them as superior to cheaper supermarket “fake flakes”.  Some questioning by foodnavigator.com revealed that while this PR release had quickly caught the imaginations of the broadsheets, tabloids and bloggers, it had, in fact, only been one of many notions proposed by the food technologists, not yet costed or trialled.

Nevertheless, the idea was arresting enough to generate acres of free publicity. And here, of course, is the substance of the PR coup – in a year when Kellogg’s have run a big campaign around Henry Kellogg’s signature and a “if it’s not Kellogg’s on the box, it’s not Kellogg’s in the box” message (see above), this helped drive the message home brilliantly. Message sent, message received. So questions over whether many consumers would want to look into a bowl of logos, or if such an innovation would bolster the famously natural credentials of the product can also stay on the drawing board.

Creative legend Paul Arden said that an idea never realised is worthless – this McGuffin would suggest that’s not always the case.