Last week, when an ice-cream car was circling in my neighborhood, I stopped it and bought a Sponge Bob Popsicle.
It was just a citrus flavored bar with tons of food coloring in it. But that is not why I end up being an unhappy customer. The real reason is, I found the popsicle bar is badly designed.
Let’s take a close look.
The Experience
Obviously, the yellow, red and white parts are the ice and the black eyes (actually Sponge Bob has blue eyes), according to the packaging paper, are gumballs. Yes, I can envision that having a piece of gum as a perfect finishing of the whole experience, but this is hardly the case.
On the one hand, the gum it should not be put in the freezer directly since the flavor and texture will change thus bland and hard to chew. On the other hand, as the gumballs are basically in the middle and attached the bar, even bite around the bar won’t leave them until the end, so chewing gum while eating the popsicle is an essential part of the experience.
The Problem
The caption on the Sponge Bob Popsicle reads “contains gumballs, a potential choking hazard for children age 3 and under”, which means kids who are in the age range of 4 to 6 may have this popsicle.
According to the article Influence of Licensed Characters on Children’s Taste and Snack Preferences that published in 2010
Children significantly preferred the taste of foods that had popular cartoon characters on the packaging, compared with the same foods without characters.
The research is based on forty 4 to 6 years old children, and in this case, the result suggests that the Sponge Bob popsicle may be more attractive comparing to the non-character branding product.
I may trust a 4-year-old chewing gum, but will I trust him/her to chew a frozen gum while eating a popsicle? Will swallowing increase the risk of choking on gum? Can we have an experience that not involving the chewing gum while swallowing?
The Design
There will be several solutions to address the issue and improve the current product. I will list them in the order from simple to complicated.
1. The simplest way would be removing the gumballs, and add suitable color as the eyes at the original place.
2. Creating the 3D character shape popsicle and avoiding other material attached.
3. Both gum and hard candy made the top 9 choking food for kids.
If the primary market is under-school age kids and school-age kids, using chocolate or jelly beans instead of gumballs to avoid chewing which swallowing and lower the risk of choking.
4. If the primary market is adults, without the choking problem, I would like to make the gum the end of the whole experience.
The gum foundation will also stop the melting drops.
