Project 2 Brainstorming-Hot Dogs

Hot Dogs!

I have chosen Hot Dogs as the processed food I will be creating my awareness campaign about, particularly the hot dogs found at the stalls of street vendors around the city.

History:

Hot dogs were thought to have originated around the 15^th century in Frankfurt, Germany, thus the sausage’s original name of the Frankfurter. These sausages were quite large compared to the hot dog sold on city streets today, and were sold without buns. It wasn’t until the 17^th century when the “dachshund” or “little dog” was created in Bavaria in Coburg, Germany. The Hot Dog as we know it today, bun and all, was invented by Charles Feltman, a German immigrant who moved to Coney Island, New York in 1871. It is also said that the hot dog bun concept was developed in 1880 by the wife of another German immigrant living in St. Louis, Missouri, because customers kept taking the gloves handed to them to eat the sausages without burning their hands. The World Fair in Chicago in 1893 marked the debut of the hot dog vendor, and around the same time made its first debut at a ballpark at a St. Louis Browns game. The term Hot Dog came into being because there were concerns around 1884 (even as early as 1845) that sausage makers used dog meat to make the sausages. The first published mention of the term “Hot Dog” was in The Knoxville Journal on September 28^th, 1893.

Hot Dogs, though traditionally made of pork and/or beef, can be made of many different kinds of meats. They consistently always contain mostly meat by-products, fat, flavorings such as salt, garlic, and paprika, and preservatives (typically sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite). Soy fillers and cereals are also sometimes used.

Hot Dogs have high sodium, fat, and nitrite content, which have all been linked to many health problems. The American Institute for Cancer Research has also released a report that found that consuming one 50 gram serving of processed meat, the same amount of one hot dog, every day increases a person’s risk of colorectal cancer by 20%. Sodium nitrite has also been believed to cause cancer.

The manufacturing process of Hot Dogs perpetuates inhumane mass animal farming and unsafe conditions that require farmers to use many pesticides and antibiotics in their animals due to unsanitary conditions. The process to make a Hot Dog also requires a large amount of both electrical energy and water supplies. Waste from this production method has not been put into check or shown in the spotlight much in the past decade since the green movement has been growing.

Target Market:

Tommy is an 18 year old boy who lives in Brooklyn (Park Slope or Green Point) who is interested in sports. He absolutely LOVES baseball. He collects baseball cards, is a devout Yankees fan (just like his dad), and knows all the stats all the time. He can be seen walking around school in jeans and a Yankees t-shirt with a baseball cap on every day. If he’s not wearing a Yankees shirt he’s wearing at least a blue shirt. Tommy likes to chew gum, and likes go to the park to play catch. He also goes to McCarren Park or Prospect Park a lot to play baseball with his friends and family. He is on a baseball team, and has been since he was 5, and plays games every weekend. His family is well off. His mother is a stay at home mom, and his father works in Midtown Manhattan for Chase. Tommy also really likes comics, and so I will use a casual, funny, slightly immature style of language to speak to him. He couldn’t possibly leave a game without getting a hot dog from the corner street vendor, it is a reward for his hard work and good performance, and sometimes a comforting way to make him feel better if his team has lost. To him the hot dog is the “nutritional” embodiment of baseball, and so even though the hot dog may not exactly taste that amazing, he loves it because of what it stands for. Tommy’s love for hotdogs is a reflection of his deep love for baseball.

Possible Tag lines:

Don’t do the dogs!

Save dogs, eat what you know

Know what kind of Dog that is?

What breed is that?

It’s called a Dog for a reason

Say no to dogs

Don’t be a weenie** this is my favorite

Designer Inspiration:

I have decided to use Paul Rand as the inspiration for my campaign’s graphic style. I like his cartoon-like style and think it will fit well with my target market and voice of the campaign. He favors sans serif fonts, which will keep the campaign less corporate and give it a more familiar voice. I will attempt to also carry out the balance, uniformity, and equilibrium of Paul’s style in my campaign. I will use his simple, rational, and clear focus to maintain some order despite the informal and humorous attitude of the text and the typefaces. The playful, block cartoon-like quality of the images used in many of his pieces will also be carried through in my campaign. Some works of his are shown below.