White Bread Good for You? Sorta Makes You Wonder

Back in the 1950s, Wonder Bread set up a display in supermarkets across America featuring famed ballplayers Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial. The signage assured mom that “good ball players need” Wonder, which packed an unusual surprise inside its white, squishy slices: Wonder Bread—enriched with vitamins and minerals to “build strong bodies”—was actually good for you.Fast-forward half a century, and Wonder Bread is preparing to send America much the same message all over again—albeit with new taglines and without baseball sluggers. A new TV and print campaign via Grey, New York, reminds moms that Wonder contains the fiber of whole wheat, vitamin D and the same amount of calcium as you’ll find in an 8-oz. glass of milk. “This campaign is consistent with our heritage messaging,” said Stephany Verstraete, vp of bread marketing at Hostess Brands. “What’s fresh is the emotional connection.”The creative plays off the phrase “You wonder,” by showing kids up to the usual quirky stuff that kids do—playing superhero, experimenting with crazy hairdos or striking the consummate whatever pose (see graphic at right). “You’ll always wonder about your kids,” says the TV spot’s female narrator. “But one thing you don’t have to wonder about? The goodness of new Wonder.” According to Grey creative director Shawn Couzens, the vignettes “tap into the collective voice of all parents by bringing special little moments to life in an evocative, relatable way.”The spots bring something else to life, too: Hostess’ new name for white bread itself. Wonder Bread isn’t just Wonder anymore; it’s Wonder Smartwhite—a fresh-baked term clearly aimed at distancing Wonder from white bread’s reputation as highly processed and nutritionally dubious. With the sparky new name, Verstraete explained, “we wanted to make sure that mom understands that we get the nutritional needs of today’s families.” But at a time when ingredient-conscious Americans are carefully inspecting most every food product before dropping it into their shopping carts, will Wonder’s latest marketing update be enough to win over sophisticated moms? Ken Harris, principal at Evanston, Ill.-based Cannondale Associates, thinks it’s a solid start. Wonder, he said, “is doing what they have to do. They’re taking a tried-and-true product and updating its relevance to what’s on consumers’ minds today.”Though few viewers are likely to remember it, nutrition was on consumers’ minds 50 years ago, too. In the 1940s, Wonder was part of a government-sponsored project to enrich white breads with essential nutrients. But today, of course, it takes more than Stan Musial’s face to get customers to buy it.

Brand Marketing

White Bread Good for You? Sorta Makes You Wonder

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara