You know guilty pleasures, right? How about guilty suffering? It’s not that you really like it, you just can’t resist it..?

That’s how I feel about the Robinson TV-show (“Survivor” in the US). But the shows undeniable entertainment value aside, one question keeps popping up.

I really had to wonder about this: Each and every commercial break starts and ends with the same ad for Malaco (they make som excellent candy). This means that you get to see the same short spot 10-15 times that evening. And the slogan in the spot: “Delightful change” (forandring fryder). Repeated endlessly every week… (they did it the last couple of seasons too).

It got to the point where I HAD to write to Malaco and find out if they had asked themselves if this was maybe a conflicting message. This is the answer I got (in danish):

Tak for din henvendelse vedr. Malaco’s pay-off “Forandring fryder”.

Jeg kan godt se, hvor du vil hen med dit sp?rgsm?l, men pay-off’et
“Forandring fryder” skal selvf?lgelig ses i sammenh?ng med Malaco poserne
og ikke p?, hvor mange gang spottet vises under en udsendelse. Hvis man g?r
det; alts? t?nker p?, hvor mange gange det vises, kan jeg da godt se, at
der ikke er den store forandring.

“Forandring fryder” som pay-off til Malaco er naturligvis valgt fordi vi
mener, at poserne har s? stor en variation, at forandringen i poserne netop
fryder forbrugerne, og det er lige pr?cis det, vil gerne vil kommunikere ud
til jer. Samtidig vil vi naturligvis ogs? gerne ?ge kendskabet til Malaco
blandt forbrugerne, og dette ville vi ikke have n?r s? meget succes med,
hvis ik ke vi viste det samme spot igen og igen.

Til dit sp?rgsm?l, om der er risiko for, at vi ender med at irritere seerne
kan jeg kun svare: Nej, det tror jeg ikke… Vi har ikke f?et andre
henvendelser vedr. dette end denne fra dig.

Vi takker endnu en gang for din henvendelse og den interesse, du har vist
Malaco samt ?nsker dig et fortsat rigtigt godt Robinson efter?r.

I like it that they take the question seriously, and return with a coherent, corteous answer. Thanks, Malaco. The answer for the non-danish speaking crows is that no, nobody at Malaco sees a potential conflict in the message.