"Wheaties Fuel"-Successor to Champions

The codfish lays ten thousand eggs,
The homely hen lays one;
The codfish never cackles
To tell you when she's done;
And so we scorn the codfish,
While the humble hen we prize.
Which only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise.
-- Anon.

That
one it got right. And in a big way. And the ameliorating news broke
just as the bad news hit the papers. I'm referring to General Mills.
Two weeks ago I described the problems it was having with the Food and
Drug Administration because of its advertising the medicinal qualities
of Cheerios. It told consumers that those who faithfully ate Cheerios
for 6 weeks would lower their cholesterol by 4 per cent. The FDA said
such a claim moved Cheerios from the cereal category to the drug
category and it should either go through the process for a new drug
application or discontinue the advertising. It's too soon to know how
that controversy will get resolved. The FDA won't be getting involved
in General Mills's exciting newest product, however. It's a Wheaties
offspring that is designed to appeal exclusively to men. It comes with
the tantalizing name "Wheaties Fuel".

Wheaties has long been
associated with athletes who were winners rather than the other kind.
It was known as the "Breakfast of Champions" and boxes would feature
pictures of such sports heroes as Joe Dimaggio swinging a bat and
saying "I can't sock 'em out on a skimpy breakfast" implicitly
suggesting the antidote to "skimpy breakfast" was a bowl of Wheaties.
(That particular box also had a small picture of a girl in a bathing
suit saying "tops with me." From the size of the picture it's
impossible to know if the bather was famous or simply pretty.)

Wheaties did not start out as a champion. According to a report in the New York Times,
it had something of a wimpy beginning. It was "invented accidentally
when a health clinician in Minneapolis who was simmering bran gruel for
intestinally distressed patients spilled it onto a hot stove and it
dried into flakes. . . ." Recognizing what a good thing it had, General
Mills's predecessor company began marketing the fortuitously dried
gruel as a cereal. Ten years later its new proprietor, General Mills,
baptized the boxes in which it came "Breakfast of Champions". The first
athlete whose image was used was Lou Gehrig. The faces of dozens of
other well-known athletes have graced the boxes over the years. General
Mills hoped that consumers would believe that by consuming Wheaties
they, too, would become champions. Looking at sales figures, General
Mills has now realized that the bloom is off the rose.

According
to the New York Times story, sales have been dropping. In the last year
alone, Wheaties' sales have dropped roughly 14 per cent, hardly the
performance expected of champions. And the decline is not simply
fortuitous. General Mills apparently thinks that Wheaties is a bit
effeminate for today's male. Although 60 per cent of Wheaties' eaters
are said to be men, Amy Martin, a member of the advertising group that
handles Wheaties' account, told the Times reporter that "females have
historically more often been the purchasers of cereal" and even when
the men are doing the shopping, it's long been assumed they buy what
their wives or girlfriends tell them to buy." Ms. Martin further
observed that men (without I should say, losing any of their
masculinity) "are taking over a lot more of the shopping occasions. And
as that happens, men are not just following a list but are much more
focused on making decisions themselves." David Clark, a marketing
manager at General Mills offers another reason why Wheaties is
changing. "Nobody in this enormous category (cereal eaters) is speaking
to men. Men don't use their wives' razors or deodorants; why would they
be eating their cereal." (It is important to note that this observation
only applies to cereals. A man eating in a restaurant should not be
dissuaded from ordering a drink or a meal simply because most of the
women at his table are ordering the same thing. Cereals are, as lawyers
like to say, sui generis.)

It is not simply the advertising
that is going to accompany the new product that is changing. There is
going to be a substantive change as well.

Wheaties includes
folic acid, an ingredient that everyone knows is more important for
women than for men. The new product is going to add Vitamin E,
something believed by some to be lacking in men's diets. The final
product is not going to be the result of a few tasters at General
Mills. Although famous athletes have helped in the design of the
product, the company sought volunteers from "everyday athletes" whom it
solicited in the magazine Men's Health. The volunteers will select the
best formulation of Wheaties Fuel and that will replace the Breakfast
of Champions on your grocery shelves.

There is only one thing that is more amazing than I am sure the new
product will be. That is all who are associated with the new product
from developer to promoter take themselves seriously. General Mills can
only hope that the General Public, especially the part that comprises
men, will follow suit.