Cookies and Consumer Behavior

Today I'm baking my grandmother's famous (to me) cookie recipe. Grammy made sure not one birthday (neither mine, my siblings nor cousins) passed without us receiving a crisp $5 bill and a tin full of oatmeal cookies. She was not short on grandkids, so this was not an insignificant sacrifice of time nor money. The taste of these particular cookies evokes my happy childhood and my tough-yet-tender grandmother, baking many dozens of cookies in her tiny trailer kitchen.

Consumer behavior experts tell us the most effective messages to potential customers trigger deep associations with the past by tapping into our long-term memory. Think of the moment Anton Ego tastes Remy's creation in Ratatouille… he is catapulted back a happy memory of childhood in the French countryside. Creating these types of deep associations is incredibly difficult (and expensive) for product marketers. Reams of consumer research, thousands of hours of work of talented marketers and brilliantly creative ideas are a start, but don't guarantee a consumer will form the association a company aims to create. Oddly, this is what the cookies reminded me of.

For those of you who want to do some baking, here's the recipe (so easy, an MBA can do it.) Now, not so secret.

Oatmeal Crispies (makes 5 dozen)
1 cube Nucoa (margarine) and ½ cup Crisco (or 1 cup [2 sticks] unsalted butter at room temperature)
1 ¼ cups dark brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups flour mixed with 1 tsp baking soda
3 cups quick cooking oats (whole oats are fine)
A generous helping of love (Grammy's words, not mine.)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Cream brown sugar with Nucoa and Crisco (butter), add white sugar and stir until creamy again. Add vanilla and eggs, mix well. Add flour and soda and mix thoroughly. Add oats and Love and stir until there are no dry oats. [at this point, I drop them in teaspoon size balls onto a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 9-12 minutes, until the edge of the cookies are brown, but not burned.] Form in rolls, wrap in waxed paper and chill. Cut into ¼" slices and bake on ungreased cookie sheet 10 to 12 minutes at 350. Makes approximately 5 dozen. Enjoy.