Archive for: advertising

Sugar’s Got What It Takes, a vintage ad

The pile of food magazines that I have in my collection is big, and each one is studded with post-its that mark the page of all the delicious sounding recipes that I have long planned to try (and hopefully will in 2013). These magazines are also packed with vintage ads for everything from food to cigarettes that are well-worth a look or two. I’ve seen many vintage ads, but I have never seen one that I like as much as this ad for sugar.

I cut this ad out of a Time magazine from the mid-1960s, just after the artificial sweetener Aspartame hit the market. Clearly, the sugar industry was worried about losing market share to this calorie-free sweetener. I suspect that they still are, but that they wouldn’t use a marketing strategy like this one nowadays!

The ad basically tells you how running low on energy could be hazardous to children – and what better way to avoid exhaustion than by making sure they have plenty of sugar! It’s hard to disagree with that logic. My favorite part of the ad is the warning at the bottom that reads:

Note to Mothers: Exhaustion may be dangerous – especially to children who haven’t learned to avoid it by pacing themselves. Exhaustion opens the door a little wider to bugs and ailments that are always lying in wait. Sugar puts back energy fast – offsets exhaustion. Synthetic sweeteners put back nothing. Energy is the first requirement of life. Play safe with your young ones – make sure they get sugar every day.

Be sure to click on these images to enlarge and get a full sized view of the ad. Now, I’m off to eat some sugar just to be on the safe side.

Snack cakes promoted with cake-dispensing billboard

When a new bakery or cupcake shop opens up, a plate of samples is sure to entice potential clients to come in for a taste. Prepackaged food producers, including both big companies and smaller gourmet mail-order places, don’t have this option and can’t make a connection with a customer unless someone gets something as a gift or is drawn in by good advertising, reviews, etc. to try their products. One company in the UK is trying to bridge the gap and has created a series of bus-stop billboards that dispense free samples of individually wrapped snack cakes.

These Mr Kipling brand snack cakes are being promoted as a great to-go treat, but it is definitely unusual to distribute them this way. The ads simple dispense the treats at the push of a button, so a curious cake fan can try one at any time . It is similar to the cupcake ATM idea – only it is free. These ads will be in 19 locations throughout London during this promotion, but if the idea catches on we just might start to see similar ads in the US.

A sample of moist cake or a bite-sized section of a muffin has drawn me in and prompted me to buy something many times at bakeries (and occasionally to pass things up, if I find I don’t care for them), so I would probably give these cake dispensing machines at least once. I suspect, however, that I’m not the only one who whole be tempted by a free snack cake, so hopefully the companies behind these ads have a plan in place to keep them well-stocked while the ads are running.