Product 19

Kelloggs’s iconic cereal Product 19, touted as a nutritious cereal-style supplement (its main purpose seems to be a vehicle to provide vitamins and minerals rather than flavor), is memorable for not much more than its name. It has a somewhat sinister, scientific, government-y prototype feel to it implied by the word “product.” Why would a company as colorful as Kelloggs, not known for their restraint in naming breakfast cereals, go for such a bizarrely bland name? Perhaps its popularity is an expression of reverse psychology: if it sounds this bad, it has to be good.

In fact, it is the result of a dearth of imagination on the part of the copywriter responsible for making this dull cereal sound exciting. His charge was to find something to compete with General Mills’s cereal Total. Finally, he went with the simplest solution: as the 19^th product Kelloggs was developing that year, he let it go at that.

Still, Kelloggs found a way to make it interesting by suggesting that eating Product 19 could make people who were considerably older feel like they were 19 again. It probably made younger people feel old eating it too.

In 1988, Fort Scott summer camp, like many others, served a selection of single-portion cereals for breakfast. You could take your pick from giant boxes filled with the plastic cups with peel-off lids, grab a small carton of milk and you were set. This worked handsomely at the beginning of the summer. Campers and counselors alike had their pick of a wide variety of cereals from Froot Loops and Apple Jacks and Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, and Corn Flakes — but in the waning weeks of July, not so much. All that was left were huge, unplumbed boxes of Product 19, sitting there against the wall like dates at the Junior-Midget dance, just hoping and waiting to be picked.

Goldilocks and the Post Sugar Bear

— What’s on the agenda today?

— Post Sugar Crisp cereal.

— OK. So: it’s for kids. What do kids like?

— Stuffed toys. My daughter has so many she can’t get in her own bed.

— Aren’t Post pushing the honey content in this stuff?

— Yes. It’s mostly just sugar though. Technically they can’t call it Honey Crisp.

— Mark my words, one day they’ll change the names of all these things to “Golden” or “Honey” instead of “Sugar.”

— No they won’t. Kids like sugar better than honey. So let’s go with a bear. Bears like honey. If the bear keeps wanting to grab the kid’s cereal, it’ll make folks think it’s full of honey.

— Like Pooh Bear, cute.

— No — let’s make it a giant bear. A bear as big as the kid. Then it’s an even match. We can call him “Sugar Bear.”

— A girl and her teddy wrestling over the cereal — I like it.

— Reminds me of sugar daddy. All little girls want a sugar daddy.

— But if the bear belongs to the girl, she’ll gladly let him have it. She needs to be afraid of the bear so she won’t give it up.

— Sounds crazy sexual to me. Can we really go with that?

— It’s no different than Red Riding Hood. Or The Three Bears.

— Good point. Fairy tale characters cut to the chase. So let’s have a wicked witch too. In the TV commercials they can live in the forest and the witch can always be hiding her Sugar Crisp from the bear, who always gets it.

— Like when the little girl grows up?

— Yeah.

— She lives all alone in the forest and keeps getting her home invaded and her person assaulted and her property stolen by a scary intruder?

— Yeah.

— Jesus.

— We’ll give the bear a laid-back vibe. Non-threatening. The witch will never seem upset about it. She wants the bear to break in.

— So you’re talking about a rape fantasy, then?

— Right!

— Jesus.

— How about we just go with the girl in her pajamas, sitting on the counter with her teddy bear looking on as she grabs handfuls of the cereal from the box? We’ll make it look like she’s misbehaving.

— That’s better.

— Make her a blonde. Goldilocks. But cut her bangs real short so she looks modern.

— Done. Next?

Ad for Post Sugar Crisp, 1959

Putting The Special In Special K

At the turn of the last century, the difference between the rich and poor could be seen first thing in the morning when one considered what they broke their fast with: while the well-to-do dined on protein (eggs and bacon), the rest of the populace ate a bowl of grain slurry — porridge or grits or gruel. Will Kellogg, a vegetarian, was not a fan of meat protein (preferring nuts), and thought that the benefits of vigorous outdoor life (and frequent enemas) were the key to health. His development of flaked grains created a new way to consume what the poor had consumed all along — but in a far more convenient package. Thus was breakfast cereal born.

He and his brother John argued over the addition of sugar to their cereals, and clearly the sweetener — and its appeal to the consumer — won out.

Special K, whose whole identity condenses the Kellogg’s brand and ideal most visibly, with its giant red K and health claims, hit the shelves in 1956. It is primarily a rice and wheat cereal with numerous ingredients added to boost both nutritional punch and add flavor.

Today you can find the familiar and reassuring Kelloggs packets on any supermarket shelf pretty much everywhere you go — but what’s inside differs greatly. The Special K sold in the US is not the same as the Special K sold in Canada or Great Britain or the rest of the world. They all have different formulas guided by the rules and tastes of their various food governing bodies.

Canadian Special K, for example, is not the same as American Special K. Only American Special K has high fructose corn syrup; all the rest use sugar. Denmark outlawed the addition of vitamins to breakfast cereals in 2004 after determining that the additional levels of B6, calcium, folic acid and iron found in them could reach toxic levels when eaten daily.

Additionally it was found that the iron added to Special K was metallic iron (which occurs in metals), rather than ionic iron (which occurs in plants), which rather put people off with images of Special K potentially being a delivery system for “shredded bikes.” Though it is possible to eat metallic iron powder (in reasonable amounts) without harm, when it comes to PR, you’re only as good as public opinion will allow. In other words, Special K can only contain so much “special” and still sell itself as a health aid.

It is ironic that Kelloggs found themselves having to add iron (usually found in those protein-rich foods) to their vegetarian cereals in order to make their health claims. Since those early days other weight-loss fads have come and gone, turning the tides for and against fats and carbs respectively.

This ad is from the back of the National Geographic issue of December 1969 featuring Neil Armstrong on the cover celebrating the success of man’s moon landing. For breakfast on the morning of their launch they ate steak, eggs, toast, juice and coffee. When it comes to watching your weight, it seems, you need a different kind of morning fuel to become weightless. 

The breakfast of champions.

National Geographic, December 1969

More Yuckylicious ads: The Big Squeez, Behold The Versatronic, Gold Medal Memories, The Seven Year Itch, You Say Carat; I Say Carrot (Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off), Mad Men, It’s The Real Thing (What Is, Exactly?), What A Douchebag

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