Shoppers tuning out.

"Word fusion" is infiltrating cosmetic, drug, personal care and food packages as much as Asian fusion is infiltrating the restaurant business. Marketers' success in wowing targeted shoppers with creative product descriptions is confusing many shoppers who aren't near the target.

One shopper told us she was attracted to a foaming latte body care product but didn't buy it because she didn't understand what a foaming latte has to do with body care. If the package language and graphics aren't targeting her demographic, she probably won't understand the product or the selling proposition without some explanation--just like she won't understand instructions written in English if she only speaks Spanish.

Not getting it often means tuning out in the same way that millions of consumers tune out advertising.

Not getting whole groups of packages leads shoppers to see only those products that speak right to them and to tune out products and categories that don't.

Oscar Mayer's new line of "Mess With Your Mouth" nachos, pizza and chicken-dunk Lunchables messes with your mind, too, thanks to their confusing marketing message. To mess with your mouth, the consumer is instructed to "Pour Sour Tongue Teasing Fizz packet into sauce or over top of your favorite foods." Shoppers are supposed to know that mouth-messing is shorthand for having fun with your food. Would a simple line of translation such as "Fun with Fizzy Sauce" help out-of-target shoppers get it without losing the catchy lingo?

Trying to cater to everybody with targeted products and packages gives "demographic outsiders" blind spots while they shop. Blind spots make whole categories invisible, because the only message shoppers in the blind spot get is that they don't get the message or the merchandise. Clothing retailers have approached age differences by developing age-specific stores or departments. Now, even Wal-Mart is going to divide its stores into demographic as well as regional groups.

This word-fusion invasion is old news for advertisers, but packages are quickly following suit. Pantene shampoo comes in blonde bottles for "Blonde Expressions," brown and gold bottles for "Brunette Expressions," deep red bottles for "Auburn to Burgundy Expressions," and bronze bottles for "Women of Color Expressions." Shoppers in the target demographic can easily find their color. People outside of the target are given the impression that they should look elsewhere.

As more ads become unintelligible to non-target viewers, the viewers start tuning out advertising altogether. This explosion of word fusion is making it more confusing for shoppers to navigate through stores.

* Who wants to browse when what's new is incomprehensible?

* What are foaming lattes, dark chocolates, fresh baked apple pies, and sea salt doing in the skin-care section?

* Sea salt is in the news for being healthier and more gourmet than old-fashioned table salt. Does that mean customers in their 40s, 50s, and 60s should use it both for healthier skin and lower-sodium soup?

Many shoppers don't know the answers to these simple questions and don't want to be left behind. By leaving them in the dark, both vendors and mass retailers risk losing them from more and more aisles.

One solution is to follow the path of fashion retailers to more stores with narrower demographics; e.g., Old Navy targets younger shoppers and less affluent shoppers than the Gap, which targets younger and less affluent shoppers than Banana Republic.

Another solution is packaging, like Tide's Simple Pleasures laundry detergent, which targets a sensory-pleasure lifestyle with luminous lavender bottles of vanilla and lavender-scented Tide and "matching scents available in Downy." Even shoppers who think this is silly are able to read that it's laundry detergent.

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