Box Vox

packaging as content

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March 30, 2011

Grape Nuts: Packaging as Wardrobe

GrapeNuts1

In 1930, Grape-Nuts ran the ad (below, right) comparing their new package to a new dress. Signaling a shift from muscular, anthropomorphic boxes endlessly insisting “There’s a Reason” (for eating Grape-Nuts, that is) to a less dour (less manly?) sales pitch… (via)

Post-better-10-01-1930-075-M5 Probably the millions of people who enjoy Grape-Nuts would like to know why the package has been changed…

Well, the chief reason is that we wanted to make the package brighter, gayer, more suggestive of the fresh deliciousness of Grape-Nuts…

Maybe your grocer hasn’t received the new packages as yet. It takes time to distribute over the whole country, you know. But whether you buy Grape-Nuts to-day in the old package or the new package—the food itself is the same delicious food… and the new package has the same generous quantity as the old.

Maybe not the first company to ever equate packaging with clothing, but if packages are dresses, then Grape-Nuts now must have a closet full of them…

1950-60GrapeNuts Top, left: from Mr. Breakfast; top, middle: from Hakes.com; top, right: from Mr. Breakfast; 2nd row, left: detail of an ad from Grickily’s Flickr Photostream; billboard on bottom from Roadside Pictures’ Flickr Photostream

The evolution of Grape-Nuts boxes from the 1950s through the 1960s shows a shift of target demographic from men to women. Culminating in the 1960s television ads which featured adult women being mistaken for their teenage daughters due to the figure-enhancing effect of Grape-Nuts for breakfast. (The Billboard above with the tape measure around a slim-waisted Grape-Nuts box is part of that “Fills you up, not out” campaign.)

1970sGrapeNutsPhoto on left from: bolio88’s Flickr Photostream; on right from: Gregg Koenig's Flickr Photostream

RecentOn left: from bluwmongoose’s Flickr Photostream

Interestingly, the demographic pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way now…

“We need to bring it back to life in a relevant way,” says Kelley Peters, the “insights” director who charts Grape Nuts psychographics for Ralcorp’s $5 million resuscitation attempt. Her target: men 45 years old and up. “Men aspire to it,” she says. “It’s strong and stern, the father figure of cereals.” Her marketing chief, Jennifer Marchant, points out: “It tends to break your teeth sometimes.”

No Grapes, No Nuts, No Market Share: A Venerable Cereal Faces Crunchtime
Barry Newman, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2009

Although, there’s a reason that, in the 1950s, Grape-Nuts touted a new product improvement on billboards and packages: “New! Easier to chew!”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

No Responses to “Grape Nuts: Packaging as Wardrobe”

  1. Charlotte M Burd says:
    August 10, 2011 at 9:00 am

    Do they not make Quaker Muffet Shredded Wheat any more or where can you purchase this cereal. It was a favorite of my family.

  2. Randy says:
    August 10, 2011 at 9:08 am

    Hi Charlotte, I hear tell it’s still available in Canada…
    http://www.canadianfavourites.com/Quaker_Muffets_p/quaker005.htm