Brilliant marketing. Destructive idea.

Anyone hear about the DSRL? I have been hearing about it relentlessly on the radio stations that I listen to as I drive to work in the morning. Then I see it advertised on the television. If, by some chance, you have not heard of this it is the Double Stuf Racing League. What you're supposed to do is buy Double Stuf Oreos and then race your friends to see who can twist, lick the cream off, and then re-sandwich and dunk in milk and eat the Oreo the fastest. I don't have a problem with games. I don't have a problem with healthy competition. I DO have a problem with this not-exactly-healthy competition.

If children in our country treated Oreos as occasional treats then this campaign might be alright. But I think that this campaign encourages children to eat their cookies as FAST as is possible. As is apparent by the growing obesity epidemic our country's children do not know when to say when. I am certain that modifications on the racing rules are being made everywhere; I thought of them, so why wouldn't children? How fast can you twist, lick, dunk 2 cookies? 3 cookies? 2 cookies at a time?

I am also uncomfortable with very high-profile athletes supporting this campaign, making it seem "cooler" to do. They have Eli and Peyton Manning (football) and Venus and Serena Williams (tennis) as their mascots. I'm a little disappointed that these two families have chosen to support this marketing campaign. Let's call it like it is. It isn't a sport, it's a marketing campaign designed to move product in a crumbling economy.

Despite myself, I must say that the DSRL is a brilliant marketing campaign. When people are cutting back on costs any which way, Nabisco is making sure that if a family is going to buy cookies that they are going to be Nabisco cookies. And then the campaign is going to make sure that the children in that household eat those cookies as fast as is possible, which will then hopefully warrant a call to buy more. It is actually quite smart...but at the same time despicable.

I think that the Mannings and the Williams should recognize that their popularity should be used to educate, not fatten and sicken. They wouldn't have gotten to be at the top of their games had they sat at home scarfing down Oreos all through their childhood. They aren't doing any children any favors by being the faces of this campaign.

I think that Nabisco should shoulder some of the responsibility of our overweight nation and provide at least a caution on their DSRL site. I'm not saying that Nabisco is directly responsible for the obesity epidemic, that would be ridiculous. I am saying it would be nice to see them being responsible and saying, "Hey, this is a fun game to play occasionally. The rest of the time you should eat responsibly and mindfully, making sure to get your recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables" or something like that.

I don't think it's too much to ask!