Well here's one from the memory vault.

Do you like Golden Grahams cereal by General Mills? It's one of my favorites because it tastes so good. But I'm guessing that Golden Grahams arose from the failure of an earlier attempt at a cereal that tried to taste like graham crackers.

It was 1967 and General Mills released, "Clackers - the Graham Cereal".

General Mills was so sure they had a hit on their hands that they gave the green light to a very funny television ad campaign. On second thought, me and my school friends found the ads funny, my mom hated the TV commercials!

There was a problem, the ads were a hit with kids but the cereal tasted like "graham cracker flavored" sawdust. Had the cereal tasted good there would not have been a problem.  

My parents didn't mind the ads at first, but over time the commercials became so annoying that they would use the remote to change the channel, something they might not have done if the cereal tasted good.

I believe the failure of Clackers was the push that created Golden Grahams.

Sometimes a little change here and there and a repackaging of the product can make all the difference.

 

Vaporman87 wrote :

Sometimes a little change here and there and a repackaging of the product can make all the difference.

-end quote

My friends and I loved the commercials, the cereal needed work. Kudos to General Mills for not giving up, graham crackers are a perfect idea for a breakfast cereal. Not only did Golden Grahams get the taste right, notice how even the color and texture were a big improvement.

I can still see my favorite uncle hitting the remote when the Clackers ad came on when I would stop by for a visit. He hated those ads even more than my mom.

I still find Clackers ads funny, but it was tough to get through the first 2 minutes of that video. Hey, that's what age does to ya!

General Mills tried every trick in the book to increase sales. They packed toys in every box and teamed up with H-B's SatAM lineup for 1968.

Only when I look back do I realize just how big was the scale of the breakfast cereal wars. Since 1960 the battle for market share played out on magazine, newspapers, radio and television ad campaigns, with millions of dollars and corporate futures at stake.

 

Kellogg's is top dog in breakfast cereal and General Mills tried every idea they could muster to take market share away from the "Big K". In 1961 they even tried to mix corn flakes with rice to create a "lighter" cripier texture.

The result was "Country Corn Flakes":