Smarties To Lose Their Tube, Apparently

The topic today that everybody is talking about is the news that Smarties will soon be sold in new hexagonal tubes. Naturally, this has caused a bit of an outrage among the public, who have fond memories of the old-style tubes.

Choice quotes from people e-mailing the BBC are:

'This is a disgrace! I suggest we organise an immediate boycott of all Nestle products.' (oh, the irony!)

Whatever next? Square Polos?

I learnt to read using the Smarties lid tops!

This is an outrage. Getting rid of the Smarties tube would be like changing the Union Flag or flag of Switzerland. It is part of our culture.

We won't be able to collect all the letters printed on the ends of the tubes any more! I only need Q to complete the set!!

Why?! Why?! Why have they done this? Only Smarties have the answer!

I would put my Daily Mail hat on and add my own voice to this growing crowd of dissent, but instead I'll let this article on Smarties, that I wrote for h2g2 way back in 2001, do the talking for me. It's pure quality reading, honest!

Anyhow, I'm not sure that I believe the story anyway. My first reaction was to suspect that it was a marketing ploy by Nestle, which will see this new tube introduced, a ton of complaints, and then the old tube re-introduced again, generating a load of publicity (and sales) in the process. Nestle has always run innovative marketing campaigns with Smarties (see h2g2 article), and so it wouldn't really be a suprise...

Perhaps The Evening Standard will adopt this as their new campaign, quietly forgetting about their other campaign.

Well, you can only hope...