14 DAY TRIAL // They say you can never have too much of a good thing, but, when it comes to taking precautions and preventive actions, it seems some people truly go overboard, with the result of becoming the laughing stock of everybody else. Such is the case of over 5,000 council workers who fell for a spoof campaign pushed by biscuit maker Fox to raise awareness and test the safety of biscuit consumption at work, the Telegraph informs.
Fox came up with the idea for the campaign when brainstorming for the Rocky bar, a new product. It was, of course, not meant to be taken seriously, but the £3 million invested in the campaign was money put to very good use, as many fell for it. For it, Fox set up a fictitious British Biscuit Advisory Board that made surveys and estimates of the risk council workers were exposed to in terms of biscuit consumption while at the office. Surprisingly, many took the health precautions to heart and even started monitoring tea breaks to see whether employees were not putting themselves at risk with the biscuits.
Billboards and television ads were introduced in a bid to “educate the public about responsible biscuit choices and promote safer biscuit eating practices.” Moreover, the Biscuit Advisory Board passed out a “workplace biscuit risk assessment test” that people were asked to fill out. To Fox’s huge surprise, 5,849 workers across the UK actually went to great lengths to complete it, the aforementioned publication says.
“According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, 400 people a year in Britain had to be treated in Accident and Emergency departments for biscuit-related accidents. These included ‘somebody falling over while reaching for a biscuit,’ someone slipping on a chocolate biscuit on their stairs and various people choking on biscuits. However, a spokesman urged councils not to panic about biscuit-related injuries and suggested people should just use common sense.” the Telegraph writes.
Fox, on the other hand, is completely taken aback by people’s response to the spoof marketing campaign, although it too does not fail to see just how far some would go to enforce stricter (and sometimes absurd) health regulations. “We developed the idea of the British Biscuit Advisory Board as a parody of the nation’s obsession with Health and Safety – but we never thought it would be taken quite so seriously.” Marketing Director for Fox Mike Driver says for the same publication.