JKR

The silly season fuss over the Haribo Maoam characters’ apparently lewd behaviour began with a letter to the Daily Mail from an outraged citizen of Pontefract, furious at the packaging’s potential to corrupt his kids. The author, who I venture could make a first class semiotician, noted “The lime, who I assume to be the gentleman in this coupling, has a particularly lurid and distasteful expression on his face”. The Sun proved once again why it’s the master of the headline with “Get a room you chew”, while Brand Republic speculated that the whole thing was a PR stunt by Haribo who are, coincidentally, based in Pontefract. I think that’s unlikely – what kid’s brand (particularly one this week branded with having Britain’s least green product) would want to appear pervy? Perhaps it’s an over enthusiastic junior marketeer gone rogue?

Nevertheless, Haribo can now take its place alongside some significant other brands who have benefited and suffered from imaginative urban myths: the redrawn Camel supposedly has a naked and excited chap “hidden” in its front leg (he’s facing backwards, todger pointing roughly towards the pyramid’s base if you really want to cop a look). Then again, there are others who see Mae West facing left, looking over her shoulder with her body turned right – no, me neither. P&G’s original man in the moon symbol was apparently clear evidence to some conspiracy thrill seekers of P&G being in league with the devil. The three chevrons on Marlboro’s pack can be seen as forming three K’s (for Ku Klux Klan). And from there one can spot lynched figures and anti Semitic slurs hidden in the wordmark if you view the pack from certain perspectives (such as insanity).

Ever since “The Hidden Persuaders” introduced the idea that we were being influenced by subliminal advertising, such myths have taken seed in many fertile imaginations. The truth is of course more typically dreary  – it’s hard enough designing packaging which is effective on a conscious level, so the notion that we are burying cryptic messages that can only be seen when scrutinised through squinted eyes is just silly.  Bitter experience tells me it’s possible that a subversive artworker might sneak something naughty into a pack that’s only perceptible through a magnifying glass, but that’s hardly the level we are looking at in these Maoam packs – Haribo can hardly be accused of playing a devilishly clever game of subtle suggestiveness – rather nobody had the common sense to see that the images of frolicking fruit enjoying each other’s company could look a little dodgy.

It’s all perhaps in the eye of the beholder, so I’ll leave the last word to this great German ad for FHM: “98% of men don’t see a frog here”…