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Description
To anyone who has ever enjoyed mocking corporations or laughing at the sheer stupidity of companies, the tale of the Greedy Pudding Bear is well known. There are some though, who may not have been alive or even aware of this blunder at the time. Perhaps they have heard snippits or seen references to this incident, but they do not know the whole story. To those who wish to learn about the whole debacle, or those who just want to hear it again, simply read on.

The victims of this incident was Resdale Foods, an American food company that manufactured dozens of different products and food ingredients, with most of their products focusing on dairy. In the year 2003, Resdale Foods was looking to add a new product to their lineup: pudding cups. Other dairy-based companies had their own pudding lines that they sold, and Resdale Foods was looking to finally join this specific market. Being so late to the party, though, it was decided that their pudding brand had to work extra hard to gain the customer's attention. If they had rolled out their pudding cups and dumped them into stores without announcement and fanfare, then they would obviously be ignored as mothers bought the same brand that their children had been eating for years. So Resdale Foods chose to give this new product a marketing campaign, a way to catch children's attention which in turn would reach the ears of mom and dad. The best way to do this, they believed, was giving the product a mascot. Many other food products aimed at children had their own mascots, many of which we can all name by memory. Resdale Foods sought to add a new mascot to the supermarkets, one that would catch a child's eye on both the shelves and TV commercials. This is where things start to get interesting.

As one can imagine, corporate heads don't exactly have the imagination and talent with design to just whip up a mascot out of thin air. That job went to graphic designers and artists that the company would commission for work. The big bosses up above wanted a mascot that was iconic and memorable, one that children would love and easily spot on the packaging. As stated before, such people didn't know what went into designing such a mascot, as all they wanted was results. They did not know an exact design, but they had an idea of what they wanted. The raw concept they came up with was a mascot who was a bear, almost teddy-like, as their coloration brought to mind chocolate. They thought that perhaps a mischievous bear who played tricks and stole pudding cups would be endearing, kind of like the Trix rabbit or, more fittingly, the Sugar Bear. With this rough concept of a mascot, they contacted several graphic designers, looking to hire them to draw up some ideas for what this mascot would look like.

Here is where stories begin to conflict. If one would take the word of Resdale Foods, they would say that they teamed up with these graphic designers and worked closely together to come up with several ideas for this mascot. The end result was caused by saboteurs and disgruntled employees, who sought to besmirch their name. On the other hand, the graphic designers tell a completely different tale. According to them, Resdale Foods was about as sloppy and frustrating as one could imagine when working with such a large corporate machine. Artists claim that communication between them and Resdale Foods was garbled and extremely difficult. One, whose name remains anonymous, claimed that Resdale Foods "walked in, dumped the mess on our laps and then just left without a word." The designers say that the whole concept and idea of the project was muddled and unclear. All they had to work with was the idea that they needed to make a mascot, and the only info they got for said mascot were the words "Greedy Pudding Bear." Any clarifications or discussions with Resdale Foods were met with unanswered calls, ignored e-mails and statements like "just design a mascot" or "we don't care how it looks, just make it good." The extremely frustrating process took some time, and when all was said and done, six different mascot concepts were sent to Resdale Foods.

The plan that Resdale Foods had for selecting a mascot was to do a focus group with children, and have them pick their favorites. The concepts would be presented to them, and the kids would select which ones they liked more, which would obviously lead to the company finding which design of the bunch was superior. While this seemed like an easy task, more blundering was done on their part. The heads of the project had not even seen the concept art for this mascot, and had instead put the task of arranging this presentation on the shoulders of an intern. This unfortunate worker dealt with the same lack of communication as the graphic designers did, making so that hardly anyone in the company even knew who had what or who was doing what. In the end, the intern arranged a presentation for the children, showcasing the mascot designs that had been sent in. This intern is where most of the blame for this incident lies. While the graphic designers may have sent something as a joke, it was his job to filter out such foolishness. He continues, to this day, to deny that he had any knowledge of this seventh mascot design. he claims that he had put six designs in the slideshow, and that someone else must have slipped in the seventh one. By his word, he says that he had been setup by the company in order to have him fired, while the company claims that he let the design slip in due to him have grievances with them. Regardless of who did what, when the presentation hit the screen that day, there were seven mascots in it.

As the reports say, Resdale Foods had brought several children and their parents in that day as a focus group. What they had planned was to present each concept to them one at a time, and gather comments from the crowd. In the end, when all designs had been presented, the kids would pick which one they liked the most, and the company would go from there. Things in the meeting had gone well for a bit, before they presented design number three. While all the other mascot designs were cartoony and cheery, the one that appeared on the screen was something more fitting for a horror movie. As one can imagine, this ended with screaming, crying children and extremely angry parents. The presenters were caught off guard and left dumbfounded, as they had not been aware of this horrific addition. Everything fell apart there, as parents stormed out of the headquarters with their terrified children and the company scrambled to figure out what went wrong. Any efforts of damage control were in vain, as the incident quickly made its way into the news, and the whole nation turned to laugh at the company. Parents were furious with the company, believing it was some kind of cruel joke, or perhaps some marketing stunt for an upcoming horror movie. The graphic designers involved swore that they did not create or send that design to Resdale Foods. Interviews and investigations turned up the faulty lines of communication that caused the whole debacle, which only further embarrassed the company. In the end, three people lost their jobs, and the whole project was shut down. Resdale Foods did attempt to sell their pudding cups in stores, but they did not attach a mascot to them, in fear of bringing the debacle to mind. This did not fool the public, and company quietly pulled their product from the shelves. The company scrubbed all evidence of this incident from their records and history, trying to move on and forget about the whole mess. The public though, did not forget so easily. The internet had a field day with this massive blunder, and many sites continued to mock Resdale Foods for weeks after everything went quiet. To this day, the "Greedy Pudding Bear" is remembered as a token example of corporate incompetence and stupidity.

Months after the incident faded from everyone's minds, a bit of new info came out. According to an anonymous source on the internet, it was said that the original presentation wasn't just for selecting the mascot's appearance, but their voice as well. It was claimed that the later half of the presentation included sound clips that would allow children to pick out how they wanted the Greedy Pudding Bear to talk. This part of the presentation was lost in the chaos, as the focus group fell apart well before the subject came up. Resdale Foods denies this claim, saying that they were only selecting the appearance for their mascot, but such denial meant nothing to the internet. People across message boards and forums took this bit of info and ran with it. Soon, rumors popped up everywhere about the Greedy Pudding Bear's voice and how the company still had the sound clips in their servers. Some said that Resdale Foods was merely saving what they paid for, while more horror-minded folks weaved stories about these supposed voices. Tales of voice clips from hell, or recordings that caused suicide bounced around several forums, as people put their own horrible spin on the idea. The company tried quashing these rumors and horror stories, but only served to make things worse. In the end, they gave up on the whole thing and returned to silence. This revitalization of the incident went on for a few weeks, but then died down just like before. Even so, these tales and posts can still be found floating around to this day, allowing this warped being to live on. They may not be easy to find, but they are still there. Somewhere out there, the Greedy Pudding Bear shambles through the darkness, a being that was never meant to be made or seen. Just waiting to be remembered.

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I don't even know if you could call this horror, but just a fun idea I was having one day. One of the things I really love is stories about failed mascots or marketing campaigns. Something is just hilarious about giant corporations being completely oblivious about the things they put out, like not realizing they are making innuendos or accidentally writing something that means something completely different in another language.

I don't even know where the phrase Greedy Pudding Bear came from. It was just fun to say.

Description
To anyone who has ever enjoyed mocking corporations or laughing at the sheer stupidity of companies, the tale of the Greedy Pudding Bear is well known. There are some though, who may not have been alive or even aware of this blunder at the time. Perhaps they have heard snippits or seen references to this incident, but they do not know the whole story. To those who wish to learn about the whole debacle, or those who just want to hear it again, simply read on.

The victims of this incident was Resdale Foods, an American food company that manufactured dozens of different products and food ingredients, with most of their products focusing on dairy. In the year 2003, Resdale Foods was looking to add a new product to their lineup: pudding cups. Other dairy-based companies had their own pudding lines that they sold, and Resdale Foods was looking to finally join this specific market. Being so late to the party, though, it was decided that their pudding brand had to work extra hard to gain the customer's attention. If they had rolled out their pudding cups and dumped them into stores without announcement and fanfare, then they would obviously be ignored as mothers bought the same brand that their children had been eating for years. So Resdale Foods chose to give this new product a marketing campaign, a way to catch children's attention which in turn would reach the ears of mom and dad. The best way to do this, they believed, was giving the product a mascot. Many other food products aimed at children had their own mascots, many of which we can all name by memory. Resdale Foods sought to add a new mascot to the supermarkets, one that would catch a child's eye on both the shelves and TV commercials. This is where things start to get interesting.

As one can imagine, corporate heads don't exactly have the imagination and talent with design to just whip up a mascot out of thin air. That job went to graphic designers and artists that the company would commission for work. The big bosses up above wanted a mascot that was iconic and memorable, one that children would love and easily spot on the packaging. As stated before, such people didn't know what went into designing such a mascot, as all they wanted was results. They did not know an exact design, but they had an idea of what they wanted. The raw concept they came up with was a mascot who was a bear, almost teddy-like, as their coloration brought to mind chocolate. They thought that perhaps a mischievous bear who played tricks and stole pudding cups would be endearing, kind of like the Trix rabbit or, more fittingly, the Sugar Bear. With this rough concept of a mascot, they contacted several graphic designers, looking to hire them to draw up some ideas for what this mascot would look like.

Here is where stories begin to conflict. If one would take the word of Resdale Foods, they would say that they teamed up with these graphic designers and worked closely together to come up with several ideas for this mascot. The end result was caused by saboteurs and disgruntled employees, who sought to besmirch their name. On the other hand, the graphic designers tell a completely different tale. According to them, Resdale Foods was about as sloppy and frustrating as one could imagine when working with such a large corporate machine. Artists claim that communication between them and Resdale Foods was garbled and extremely difficult. One, whose name remains anonymous, claimed that Resdale Foods "walked in, dumped the mess on our laps and then just left without a word." The designers say that the whole concept and idea of the project was muddled and unclear. All they had to work with was the idea that they needed to make a mascot, and the only info they got for said mascot were the words "Greedy Pudding Bear." Any clarifications or discussions with Resdale Foods were met with unanswered calls, ignored e-mails and statements like "just design a mascot" or "we don't care how it looks, just make it good." The extremely frustrating process took some time, and when all was said and done, six different mascot concepts were sent to Resdale Foods.

The plan that Resdale Foods had for selecting a mascot was to do a focus group with children, and have them pick their favorites. The concepts would be presented to them, and the kids would select which ones they liked more, which would obviously lead to the company finding which design of the bunch was superior. While this seemed like an easy task, more blundering was done on their part. The heads of the project had not even seen the concept art for this mascot, and had instead put the task of arranging this presentation on the shoulders of an intern. This unfortunate worker dealt with the same lack of communication as the graphic designers did, making so that hardly anyone in the company even knew who had what or who was doing what. In the end, the intern arranged a presentation for the children, showcasing the mascot designs that had been sent in. This intern is where most of the blame for this incident lies. While the graphic designers may have sent something as a joke, it was his job to filter out such foolishness. He continues, to this day, to deny that he had any knowledge of this seventh mascot design. he claims that he had put six designs in the slideshow, and that someone else must have slipped in the seventh one. By his word, he says that he had been setup by the company in order to have him fired, while the company claims that he let the design slip in due to him have grievances with them. Regardless of who did what, when the presentation hit the screen that day, there were seven mascots in it.

As the reports say, Resdale Foods had brought several children and their parents in that day as a focus group. What they had planned was to present each concept to them one at a time, and gather comments from the crowd. In the end, when all designs had been presented, the kids would pick which one they liked the most, and the company would go from there. Things in the meeting had gone well for a bit, before they presented design number three. While all the other mascot designs were cartoony and cheery, the one that appeared on the screen was something more fitting for a horror movie. As one can imagine, this ended with screaming, crying children and extremely angry parents. The presenters were caught off guard and left dumbfounded, as they had not been aware of this horrific addition. Everything fell apart there, as parents stormed out of the headquarters with their terrified children and the company scrambled to figure out what went wrong. Any efforts of damage control were in vain, as the incident quickly made its way into the news, and the whole nation turned to laugh at the company. Parents were furious with the company, believing it was some kind of cruel joke, or perhaps some marketing stunt for an upcoming horror movie. The graphic designers involved swore that they did not create or send that design to Resdale Foods. Interviews and investigations turned up the faulty lines of communication that caused the whole debacle, which only further embarrassed the company. In the end, three people lost their jobs, and the whole project was shut down. Resdale Foods did attempt to sell their pudding cups in stores, but they did not attach a mascot to them, in fear of bringing the debacle to mind. This did not fool the public, and company quietly pulled their product from the shelves. The company scrubbed all evidence of this incident from their records and history, trying to move on and forget about the whole mess. The public though, did not forget so easily. The internet had a field day with this massive blunder, and many sites continued to mock Resdale Foods for weeks after everything went quiet. To this day, the "Greedy Pudding Bear" is remembered as a token example of corporate incompetence and stupidity.

Months after the incident faded from everyone's minds, a bit of new info came out. According to an anonymous source on the internet, it was said that the original presentation wasn't just for selecting the mascot's appearance, but their voice as well. It was claimed that the later half of the presentation included sound clips that would allow children to pick out how they wanted the Greedy Pudding Bear to talk. This part of the presentation was lost in the chaos, as the focus group fell apart well before the subject came up. Resdale Foods denies this claim, saying that they were only selecting the appearance for their mascot, but such denial meant nothing to the internet. People across message boards and forums took this bit of info and ran with it. Soon, rumors popped up everywhere about the Greedy Pudding Bear's voice and how the company still had the sound clips in their servers. Some said that Resdale Foods was merely saving what they paid for, while more horror-minded folks weaved stories about these supposed voices. Tales of voice clips from hell, or recordings that caused suicide bounced around several forums, as people put their own horrible spin on the idea. The company tried quashing these rumors and horror stories, but only served to make things worse. In the end, they gave up on the whole thing and returned to silence. This revitalization of the incident went on for a few weeks, but then died down just like before. Even so, these tales and posts can still be found floating around to this day, allowing this warped being to live on. They may not be easy to find, but they are still there. Somewhere out there, the Greedy Pudding Bear shambles through the darkness, a being that was never meant to be made or seen. Just waiting to be remembered.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't even know if you could call this horror, but just a fun idea I was having one day. One of the things I really love is stories about failed mascots or marketing campaigns. Something is just hilarious about giant corporations being completely oblivious about the things they put out, like not realizing they are making innuendos or accidentally writing something that means something completely different in another language.

I don't even know where the phrase Greedy Pudding Bear came from. It was just fun to say.