Posts Tagged ‘southern’

Big Box ideas for a small-minded world.

In response to ever-fragmenting consumer markets, Costco has opened a new kind of warehouse shopping experience in the Deep South that caters discreetly to a certain unnamed, but plainly obvious demographic group. The stores’ name hints at its target market – J Crow. Membership is open to everyone, but due to complicated membership rules, it’s very difficult for “certain groups of people” to gain access to the store. The fact that J Crow has a Membership Suppression Department speaks volumes.  

J Crow is marketed as “A haven for Southerners with discriminating tastes – very discriminating tastes.” And the store has proven highly popular with its target audience. In fact, States’ Rights magazine voted J Crow the most popular warehouse store in the entire Confederacy.

This neo-Costco store features products we’re all familiar with, but have been rebranded to make them more appealing to this underserved group. A list of products catering to this unique demographic appear below:

1. KKKleenex – Comes in any color you want as long as it’s white. There are no racial issues with these facial tissues.
2. Jimmy Crow’s Pure Pork Sausage – You know it’s bad at every level, but somehow you just can’t resist it
3. Santa: Our Albino Christian Gift Giver – On sale now in the revisionist Christmas book section
4. Breyer’s All-White Neapolitan Ice Cream – The 3 flavors you love in one soothing color
5. Kellogg’s “Special KKK Cereal” – The cereal is not made from amber waves of grain, but from ample grains of bleached wheat
6. Southern Crackers – Are you kidding me? These saltines practically fly off the shelves.
7. Bigoted Playing Cards – Because sometimes you just want to play the race card
8. Crayola “Whiter Shade of Pale” Crayons – Box of 36 off-white colors including: Bone, Pearl Mist, Eggshell and Honky
9. All White M&M’s – Easily tolerated, diversity-proof snack where even the chocolate is white
10. Set of 8 Hot Wheels Race Cars – Each Hot Wheels race car is supposedly separate and equal, but guess which race always wins?
11. Cool Whip – No change to its pure, lily-white formula. It’s non-dairy and non-threatening
12. KKKrispy KKKreme Donuts – Southern fried, with Southern pride. No shortage of shortening here. In fact there’s a longage of shortening. Some say these empty-calorie donuts make the Deep South seem shallow. Very confusing, but very tasty.

Kirkland Corp. (Costco’s parent company) will be keeping a very biased eye on this new marketing  venture designed for people with discriminating tastes – very discriminating tastes. Kirkland Corp. hopes this endeavor will allow for other specialty warehouse themes appropriate to its locality. A few ideas floated include sombrero-shaped Costco’s in Mexico, pyramid-shaped Costco’s in Egypt and a Great Wall of Costco’s in China. These are just a few examples of Costco’s Big Box, out-of-the-box ideas.