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FOOD PROPAGANDA: FOODS MARKETERS MADE YOU EAT
3 times marketers convinced millions to eat certain foods...
Niall Ratcliffe
March 31, 2024
In partnership with
Morning!
Wake up. Open laptop. Tip tip tap. Shut laptop. Gym. Sleep.
My good friend Brad Burton asked me to describe my week in 10 words… these 10 summed it up perfectly.
The hamster wheel of life is in full force at the minute.
But, it was while I was tip tip tapping that I stumbled upon one of the most manipulative marketing campaigns I’ve ever come across.
Everyone thinks marketers convince you what to buy, but how much do they impact what you eat?
Answer: More than you think.
Here are 3 marketing campaigns that completely changed the Western diet:
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
A few days ago, I was working on a campaign for a client of ours who specialises in men’s health, when I stumbled upon this ad that was published in 1971:
“Sugar can be the willpower you need to undereat.”
Great ad, but absolutely bonkers.
Just 50 years ago we were getting shilled sugar as a solution for weight loss. It’s no wonder obesity rates tripled since this campaign went live.
But it got me thinking… what other foods became a staple in our diets purely as a result of good marketing?
Well, I went down the rabbit hole and found 3 surprising examples.
So here are 3 times food items were marketed into your diet + the lessons we can take from them:
1) The Avocado
2.8 billion pounds of Avocado are consumed every year in the USA.
(I personally but back 2-3/week)
But back in 1915, they weren’t even called Avocados, they were called “Alligator Pears” - not the most appetising name!
So how in the world did it go from “Alligator Pear” to one of the most popular fruits on the planet?
The answer: A 3-step marketing masterclass.
Step 1: Rename It
In late 1915, the major Avocado farmers of America realised they were all having the same dilemma - no one was buying their produce.
So they decided to “rebrand” their Alligator Pairs and give them a new name, the “Avocado”.
Step 2: Bring The Product To Market
Over the next ~70 years, those farmers would pump money into marketing the Avocado. They funded research, ran ads on TV, and screamed from rooftops… yet sales didn’t pick up.
Then in 1990, The California Avocado Commission (yes that's a real thing) hired the PR firm - Hill and Knowlton.
The mission? Make people buy the Avocado.
The firm ran a national campaign called “Mr. Ripe Guy”.
The campaign went mega-viral when they took it to another level and announced that Mr Ripe Guy was "feeling lonely".
They set up a nationwide search for “Ms. Ripe", a human woman who “exemplified the California lifestyle of good health and healthy eating.”
This was the campaign that put the Avocado on the map.
But there was still one last step…
Step 3: Integrating With Culture
Avocados seemed great, but how in the world do you consume them?
That was the question that was answered when the Avocados From Mexico brand ran a Super Bowl ad introducing Guacamole.
It was the perfect way for Americans to eat Avocados.
It became a snack, a party food, something you can consume while watching your favourite sports team.
And it worked.
After the campaign ran the Avocado crop value spiked nearly 70%.
The trendy Avocado we know today was born.
Takeaway: Even though it was the Mrs Ripe campaign put avocados on the map, it was the guac commercials that made it as popular as it is today.
Before that people had no idea of it’s use case.
I can’t remember the exact quote but Ogilvy said something like, “The best ads show what your product is and how you can use it.”
These ads from Avocados From Mexico did exactly that!
2) Cereal
Breakfast… “The most important meal of your day.”
The only problem is, it didn’t exist for thousands of years.
When humans were hunter-gatherers they would literally wake up and not eat until they had literally hunted for their food.
So where in the world did breakfast come from and why do we eat refined carbs the second we wake up?
Before the 19th century, breakfast was a thing that only the wealthiest of people would eat. People that looked like this…
Like they needed an extra meal in their day…
Anyway, back to cereal.
So in the early 1990s one of the first cereal brands emerged called “Grape = Nuts”.
And they ran a campaign that even marketers today would be proud of.
They tie their product to “Winning athletes”, “Successful thinkers”, and strong energetic men.
Who wouldn’t want to eat this? Sign me up!
But what they started, Kellogg’s finished!
John & Will Kellogg ran ‘The Battle Creek Sanitarium” which was essentially an old-fashioned spa.
It was there that the brothers invented cornflakes, initially as a way to curve indigestion.
And it quickly gained popularity with those trying to be healthy.
How did it gain popularity?
Well, the Kellogg brothers ran a national magazine called “Good Health” and in 1907, they published this line when talking about their cereal:
“The most important meal of the day”.
A line that 1000s of cereal brands have leveraged in order to shill their products.
Over the next 40-50 years there went from 160 cereals on the market to 4,945 - with nearly all of them pushing it as a great way to stay slim.
Like this classic Special K ad:
Takeaway: Yes, the Kellogg brothers spotted a trend and nailed distribution through their magazine, but the key here is the one-liner they created.
“The most important meal of the day”
It was that line that made them billionaires.
They say authors shouldn’t focus on writing a book, instead they should focus on writing 1 line that is memorable.
The same goes for advertising. It’s all well and good creating a fantastic campaign…
But it’s more powerful to create just 1 line that sticks!
3) Milk
I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house that doesn’t have milk in the fridge. But in 1933, milk was becoming less & less common.
Sales were slowing and the California Milk Board (is it just me that it’s crazy that these exist?) decided they had to do something about it.
For years they’d sold milk by simply selling it as “Good for your bones”.
But consumers knew milk was good for them - they just didn’t care.
So, the milk board decided to revamp milk’s reputation.
Rather than telling everyone what milk could do for them, they decided to highlight what it’s like to have no milk.
That’s when the infamous “Got milk?” tagline was born.
Over the next few decades, the “Got Milk?” slogan turned into a pop culture reference with 100s of celebrities getting involved in the viral milk moustache campaign - which used the same tagline.
The result of the campaign?
Sales of milk jumped 7% in just 1 year of it airing.
Takeaway: The Milk society (or whatever they call it) stopped spending all of their time trying to showcase how great milk was and instead just shone a light on the pain of not having it.
People saw them as a vitamin, but they positioned themselves as a pain killer.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
1/ Show What It Is + How To Use It
2/ Create 1 Line That Sticks.
3/ Position Yourself As A Painkiller.
These honestly make me wonder what food we are pushed today that we’ll look back in shock in 50 years.
If you haven’t already, you should seriously Google “Vintage sugar ads” - you will be shocked as you go through them.
But as a marketer you have to say… they clearly worked!
Hope you found this interesting - if you did, why not forward this to a friend (count it as my easter present!) :)
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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