Breakfast: The Biggest Marketing Success Story
and some of the cleverest ads made for public safety messages
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Breakfast: the Biggest Marketing Success Story
That tasty bacon, wholesome cereal, and refreshing orange juice you enjoyed this morning? They became breakfast staples thanks to some deft marketing over the past century. Clever advertising and public relations campaigns run over decades transformed simple farm foods into "essential" morning meals.
Breakfast wasn't always a big affair. Before the late 1800s, people ate whatever leftovers or basic foods were on hand to break the overnight fast. Then the hearty farmer's breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, and coffee took hold as they wanted a heavy meal to fuel physical labor during the day.
But as people moved from farms to cities and office jobs and sedentary office work grew, breakfast became lighter. Just coffee and toast or a roll. This worried the meat industry as bacon sales declined. Enter Edward Bernays, the influential "father of public relations", who literally reshaped America's breakfast preferences.
In the 1920s, Beechnut Bacon hired Bernays to boost lagging sales. He paid a doctor to agree that a hearty breakfast was healthier than a small one, and then sent it to 5000 other doctors for their signatures. He then got newspapers to publish the results of his petition as if it was a scientific study. So "medical studies" declared bacon and eggs the perfect healthy breakfast. Newspapers and magazines helped spread this message to millions. Bernays recognized that the public trusted doctors for nutrition advice. By promoting bacon as doctor-recommended, he reframed it as essential to good health. Sales soared.
Cereal Makers Follow Suit
The cereal industry also used health claims to make their products morning must-haves. In the 1860s, John H. Kellogg saw potential and launched Kellogg’s corn flakes with his brother Will. Soon cereal was advertised as the wholesome morning meal for proper digestion and avoiding illness.
Clever Public Awareness Ads
This campaign addresses a persistent challenge: convincing people to buckle up. The poignant visual displays life dates on a car seat, with the potential year of demise obscured by the seatbelt—a straightforward yet impactful message
Moms Demand Action’s iconic campaign for Gun control in America
A hardhitting message on what could happen to the person talking on the phone while driving, if you take his eyes off the road.
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