18 February 2008: How Many Bites in a Twix?

Today, while working on a group project, my classmate Trevor suddenly pointed at my classmate Anca and exclaimed, "why are you eating your Twix bar like that?" I looked over and saw Anca had both of the Twix bars pushed up, even bite marks on both. One of the best Twix selling points is that it has two bars. It also has a caramel crunch. The caramel reminds me of the fall. Crisp leaves all around. The rich smokey smells of burning leaves. Twix is a very 'fall' bar for me. However, when I eat it, I eat one bar and then the other. I want to maximize the time it takes for me to eat the bars. For the purpose of this class, I asked Anca why she consumed her Twix bar in this manner. She immediately replied, when you take out the Twix bar from the wrapper, it takes time to eat it. During that time, it melts in your hand. This way, I don't have to get my hands dirty. Anca is from Romania. Romania was under Soviet control until the fall of the Iron Curtain. Under Soviet Control, the rich had much and the poor had little. I guess that Anca came from the former rather than the latter. At its base level, to have own's hands dirty indicates that somebody has to work for a living. Often times, the rich do not want to associate themselves with dirty handiwork. This is the root reason that I imagine Anca does not want to get her hands dirty. In Romania, Twix may try to overcome this cultural prism, and create one full bar, instead of two, that can be pushed out of the package. Or the marketer can experiment with advertising people eating the Twix bar in this manner to imply a desired socio-economic status symbol.