Code Red Velvet

 I didn’t hear about this until earlier this week, but maybe some of you New Englanders have. WickedGood Cupcakes, a small mother/daughter operation in Cohasset, MA has had some bad publicity turn into good luck. In December, a woman who had purchased the ‘National Velvet’ cupcake (a red velvet cupcake constructed in a jar for eating on the go with a spoon) had her dessert confiscated by the TSA, because they felt it posed a risk. Not to the travelers health, but to the rest of the population; the TSA felt it could possibly be a bomb…not "da bomb", but an actual, explosive bomb. Ha ha ha...the article is great, read it here.

Wicked Good Cupcakes has 9 travel varieties, which are very popular and while this could have been a disaster for the small bakery, they have had their websites hits go from 100 a day to over 3,000 and their sales numbers have “probably doubled” according to the store manager. The cupcake customer, a professor of advertising and media studies at Salem State University, also blogs and posted on her blog about the event, “Code Red Velvet – Cupcakes of Mass Destruction”, which personally, I think is hilarious! What a great way to take advantage of the press! What is it they say…no publicity is bad publicity? As it turns out, that’s only partially true. Studies from Stanford University and University of Pennsylvania have said that negative publicity helps small businesses, people remember the publicity but not the reason, but harms larger, well known companies.

Have you participated in the cupcake craze yet? Abel & Schafer sells a number of products that make fantastic cupcakes! The A& Dream Cake (22021) is fantastic for cupcakes, along with Good Nature Chocolate and Vanilla cake mix (37320 and 37321 respectively), the Natural Parve Chocolate and Vanilla Crème Cakes (22177 and 24024 respectively), White Cake Mix (22005), and the healthiest of the bunch, Whole Grain Good Nature Chocolate and Yellow Cake Mix (37330 and 37331). The options are endless! Who needs a sample?!