They got the marketing exactly right. It's because it's being sold as a potential complete replacement for food that makes it interesting. There are already plenty of meal replacement products on the market today but no one before has tried to survive on one of these alone.

If you believe that you can survive consuming nothing but Soylent then that should give you all the confidence you need to use it as a simple quick meal when you're feeling too lazy to cook. The way I think of it is the marketing works in the same way as it does for the advanced technical gore-tex jackets people walk around in when it rains or the 4x4s mums drive their kids to school in. Sure I don't need to take my use of these products to the extreme but it's good to know that I can if I need to.

Of course the article still makes a good point - how can you possibly design a complete meal replacement formula for everyone?

For one, the choice of name, is quite unfortunate given Soylent Green. At first, I thought the name choice was intentional, a play on the concept from the movie, but alas, it was unintentional and therefore just adds to the perception that the research into Soylent is amateurish. Whether or not this is the case is not something I'm saying, just saying that from a marketing perspective, Soylent (not the Green version) is in need of improvement.

How could it possibly be unintentional?! Did they actually say this, or have they just been coy about the naming process?

He named the product based on the Soylent from the book Make Room! Make Room!, which was a Soya / Lentil product meant to feed the masses, but the movie version Soylent Green had turned that into a mix consisting of human parts. While I understand he references the original book, the majority of folks familiar with Soylent from the movie context associate it with the human-composed product. This is what makes it unfortunate and unintentional -- I don't think they wanted / intended this association. And that's what marketing is -- it's creating a market perception and demand for a product.

It would be as if someone came up with a new, super-high end car and called it a Yugo. No matter what you do, you could never completely erase the pre-existing market perception even though the new product might be totally different.

He can't possibly have been unaware of the fact that the movie is far better known than the book. Even if he meant it as a reference to the book, he must have been aware of the movie.

Of course it's a play on the movie. Where do you get the weird idea that it might be unintentional?

See my comment below - it's a play on the book, not the movie. He was hoping for the original connotation of what the book intended, not what the movie intended. He talks about that here: http://io9.com/could-soylent-really-replace-all-of-the-food-...

That's my PoV too. Soylent sounded interesting in concept and then I saw the combination of the creator advertising it as a replacement for all your meals, while quietly noting that he hasn't actually used it to replace all his meals? Just feels kinda shady, and makes me concerned for the people who are gullible enough to actually try subsisting on it. I hope it doesn't injure anyone.

In a general sense, meal replacements are great - they let you simplify eating and save money by buying in bulk, and the regulated intake can help if you're trying to lose weight, too. But you better believe the friends of mine who try to lose weight using a completely replacement-based diet are being supervised by a doctor!