Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S2E02 - A Prize In Every Box: Box-Tops, Toys and Free Prizes

Episode Date: January 13, 2013

Remember when you were growing up, and you’d find a prize inside your cereal box? Prizes, premiums and box-top offers have been a staple of modern marketing since the 1800s. We’ll tell the story of how the first ever box-top offer was the result of a critical marketing mistake – but it set the stage for a century of product giveaways. We’ll also explore the psychology of free prizes, like how the public is instantly attracted to a mail-in offer, but so few go to the trouble of redeeming their prize.From the first Kellogg’s cereal prize, to Crackerjack, to the Happy Meal, to a promotion involving the Beatles that resulted in a lawsuit - it’s a fascinating aspect of marketing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 2, 2013. You're soaking in it. You're loving it in style. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. One night, back in 1954,

an ad man named Bruce Baker couldn't sleep. His client, the Quaker Oats Company, had asked him to come up with a new premium promotion for their cereals. In the marketing world, premiums is a word for the toys and prizes found inside cereal boxes and other packaged products. Baker's premium idea was due tomorrow. It was 3 a.m., and he was still drawing a blank. There was one more stipulation. The premium had to tie into the TV show Quaker was sponsoring called

Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Sergeant Preston of the Northwest Mounted Police with Yukon King, swiftest and strongest lead dog breaking the trail in the relentless pursuit of lawbreakers in the wild days of the Yukon. Suddenly, Bruce Baker had an idea. He got dressed, jumped on the 5 a.m. train, raced to his ad agency, met his art director, and by 11 a.m. that morning, they were in Quaker's boardroom. And here's the idea they pitched. Put a land deed in every box of cereal.

The deed would be for one square inch of land in the Yukon. Kids would get to own a piece of the land that Sergeant Preston actually patrolled. At first, Quaker hated the idea, saying it would be too complex and too costly. But Baker laid out the numbers for them. A 19-acre plot of land in the Yukon would only cost $1,000. 21 million one-inch parcels could be cut from the land. Deed printing and the cost of the land would all come in under $10,000. It was a big, unique, affordable idea.

And it tied in beautifully with their Sergeant Preston of the Yukon TV show. So Quaker approved the idea and bought a 19.1-acre plot of land along the Yukon River, sight unseen. Next, Baker was sent to the Yukon to convince a very skeptical local territory assessor to actually issue 21 million one-inch land deeds. Once that was done, Quaker set up a subsidiary and created the Klondike Big Inch Land Company. The promotion launched on the Sgt. Preston Show on January 27, 1955, and ads appeared in 93 newspapers.

The response was beyond Bruce Baker's wildest dreams. The public scooped up Quaker cereal as fast as land deeds could be stuffed into the boxes. Grocers had to set up special Quaker displays to handle the rush. Every box was sold. Quaker was thrilled. By the late 1950s, Sergeant Preston had gone off the air, and the one-inch land deed promotion had run its course. The Klondike One-Inch Land Company was kept alive for a while to handle inquiries,

and the 19-acre plot of land was eventually repossessed by the Canadian government for non-payment of $37.20 worth of tax. And that was the end of the Quaker One Inch Land Giveaway. Or so they thought unlike plastic airplanes and decoder rings people didn't play with the land deeds for two weeks and throw them away instead they stuffed them in cookie jars and safety deposit boxes many years years after Quaker's one-inch land rush promotion,

the company began getting thousands of requests from deed holders. Former children, their attorneys, their widows, and their executors were writing to inquire

after their property, which they assumed had increased in value over the years. People were serious about their seven-by 7 by 5 inch deed, which, by the way, was 35 times larger than the piece of land it represented.

One person sent along four toothpicks and some string and asked if his square inch could be roped off. Even the Canadian government had to deal with thousands of requests and had files that were over 18 inches thick, which they quickly referred to the Quaker Oats Company. It became no laughing matter at Quaker. They were threatened with lawsuits, and the time and expense required to answer the letters was enormous.

As it turns out, Quaker had protected itself by not registering any of the land titles, so the deeds had no value. But, needless to say, it was one of the most successful marketing premiums of all time and one of the biggest headaches, as they still get letters to this day. Not all free prizes, toys and boxtop offers ended up haunting the parent company. But premiums are one of the most fascinating aspects of marketing. They not only helped sell millions of products,

they ensured more brand loyalty than almost any other marketing strategy. If you have fond memories of finding a free toy in your cereal bowl as a kid, pull up a chair. You're under the influence. Was there anything more exciting than pouring cereal at breakfast and hearing that clink as something shiny bounced into your bowl? I can still remember how my brother and I would fight over the toy, but the rule in the O'Reilly household was, if the toy fell into your bowl, you got the prize.

Little did we know that the clink we just heard was one of the most carefully planned marketing ideas of all time. The first recorded premium was created in the year 1793. A merchant in Sudbury, New Hampshire, started handing out copper tokens when a customer made a purchase. The customer could save the tokens and use them for future purchases in the store. Then, in 1851, the idea of sending in box tops was born. And it all started with a critical mistake.

B.T. Babbitt owned a soap company that manufactured sweet home laundry soap. Up until that time, women would buy raw cakes of soap from merchants. There was no packaging whatsoever, and the cakes were just piled in big barrels. But B.T. Babbitt was convinced women would be more attracted to a soap wrapped in paper. It was also a good way to brand sweet home laundry soap and make it distinctive. No one had ever done it before. It was a big idea. It was also a bad idea.

Women avoided the product completely and reached instead for the plain soap they were used to. So, B.T. Babbitt did what most marketers would do when staring at thousands of unsold products. He panicked. In desperation, he decided to try a marketing gimmick to sell them. The idea was simple. Ask women to send in three sweet home laundry soap wrappers and, in return, they would receive a free picture of flowers.

It was, quote, the bouquet that wouldn't wilt. The promotion was a huge success. Women grabbed Sweet Home Laundry soap by the handfuls, sometimes 25 at a time, sent in the wrappers, and collected the full series of colorful flower lithographs. With that, the marketing concept of sending in box tops and wrappers was born, and B.T. Babbitt saved his company. The success wasn't lost on other marketers, and as product packaging became more prevalent in the early 1900s, the box top became the premium device of choice. Enter the Kellogg's Company.

In 1906, Kellogg's Cornflakes was the new product of the fledgling company. W.K. Kellogg was a budding marketer and he decided to launch Cornflakes with a powerful promotion. It was based on a gift-with-purchase strategy,

which is still in use to this day. Kellogg's developed the Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures book. It featured cartoon drawings of an elephant, a giraffe, a lion, and an alligator. The drawings were designed so that children could switch the head of one animal onto the body of another with the legs of a third. Kellogg's delivered carloads of the books to grocers with their cornflakes orders, and grocers gave one book to every customer

who bought two boxes of cornflakes. So successful was this promotion that it would become the foundation of Kellogg's marketing for the next 30 years. In 1909, Kellogg's changed the offer from an in-store giveaway to a mail-in offer. All people had to do to get the book now was send in a box top and a dime. By 1912, Kellogg's had distributed an astonishing 2.5 million funny Jungleland moving pictures books. Kellogg's would continue the box-top book offer until 1937. By that time, over two generations had thumbed its pages. In the late 1870s, a man named Francis William Ruckheim

bought a small popcorn and candy company. His big break came during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. World's Fairs were famous for introducing new products to the public, and that list included the elevator, the sewing machine, the telephone, and even ice cream cones. The 1893 World's Fair introduced another new product to the world, Ruckheim's caramel-coated popcorn and molasses product. At first, the snack didn't have a name,

but it did have a slogan, the more you eat, the more you want. Then, in 1896, a salesman sampling the product exclaimed, That's a Cracker Jack! which, at that time, was a slang term

for something great. Suddenly, Ruckheim's Sticky Popcorn now had a name. And soon, another piece of the Cracker Jack marketing puzzle fell into place in 1908, when this song became popular at the nation's ballparks.

Take me out to the ball game. Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don't care if I never get back. But it wasn't until 1912 that Cracker Jack began putting prizes into its boxes as an ongoing marketing strategy. From that time forward, every Cracker Jack box would proclaim a prize in every box. Not only was there a prize in every box,

but Cracker Jack saw an even bigger opportunity and began to offer a collectible series of prizes. It was a masterstroke, as the public rushed to collect entire sets. The strategy ensured repeat purchases, and Cracker Jack's sales exploded. Even today, Cracker Jack's surprise inside offer is still going strong, 100 years later.

And we'll be right back. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest.

And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives? Available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. By the 1930s, radio was the big, new, miraculous medium. It was a groundbreaking innovation that disrupted all other forms of advertising.

Yes, radio was the internet of its time. Good morning radio listeners, Clara Lewandam, brought to you by Colgate-Palmolive Seat, makers of quality products since 1806. In short order, radio programs and soap operas were developed not by radio networks, but by advertising agencies, created with the express purpose of being vehicles for commercials. We toast them crisp, we toast them light, you can tell by the taste we toast them. They're a tasty treat, so good to eat,

delicious and light from toast them. Toast, toast them. And you know what? We like them. In his 1955 book titled Ads, Women, and Box Tops, marketer Dwayne Jones tells the story of creating the first box top offer ever broadcast on national radio. Working at the Benton and Bowles Advertising Agency back in 1933, Jones was tasked with coming up with an idea to market Colgate-Palmolive's Super Suds detergent. While holding a Super Suds box in his hand, Jones suddenly wondered if he could leverage the box top to persuade women to buy more product. So he went to agency founder Bill Benton and pitched the idea of asking customers to send

in one Super Suds box top and a dime for which they would receive a package of flower seeds in return. Bill Benton just stared at Jones and told him it was the stupidest idea he had ever heard. But Jones persevered and eventually convinced Colgate-Palmolive to try it. He also had soap opera stars talk about the beautiful flowers they had in the gardens of their Hollywood homes, thus making the seeds instantly desirable to listeners. In only 10 days, 600,000 people had sent in Super Suds box tops. That was 60,000 box tops per day. When ad agency boss Bill Benton saw the spectacular results, he exclaimed, I knew it was a great idea right from

the start. Yep, you gotta love bosses. This box top promotion became the cornerstone of a new broadcast sales strategy, and it would help make millions of women habit-minded in their purchase of packaged products for the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room for the next 80 years. Needless to say, the success of the Super Sud seed promotion was an eye-opener for the advertising industry. Next, in 1947, Dwayne Jones approached the vice president for the Manhattan Soap Company with a radical idea. They had a product called Sweetheart Soap.

Jones suggested the Manhattan Soap Company refund the cost of any new customer's first three cakes of Sweetheart Soap. The vice president said, You want us to do what? Then, Jones unfolded his plan. Ask women to go to their closest grocer, buy three cakes of Sweetheart Soap, and write the company a 25-word letter telling them why they liked the soap.

Then, all they had to do was send the letter, along with three wrappers, and Sweetheart Soap would refund the purchase price, plus postage. The vice president said he wasn't interested, because the company would go broke paying for all the soap redemptions. But Jones replied, no you won't, because the redemptions will be nil. See, Dwayne Jones understood human nature and cited the two allies of refund marketing, lethargy and procrastination.

Jones knew that very few women would ask for a refund because they couldn't be bothered to write a 25-word letter and send in three wrappers. He likened the task to answering Christmas cards. It's just too much effort. But women would buy the three cakes of soap because of the offer. You see that same strategy in use today. In order to get a refund on a product,

there is usually a detailed process you have to go through. That process is just complicated enough to make you say, forget it. Companies, of course, profit greatly from this. You can even see it with gift cards. Last year, over $8 billion in gift card cash had not been redeemed. There were other invaluable lessons learned about premiums back then. For example, it was observed that fun premiums will always, always outperform a utility offer. Which would you rather send three box tops to get? A shoehorn or a secret decoder ring?

Exactly. Another interesting insight involved the amount of money you could ask of a consumer the most successful offers ask customers to send in a box top and either a single coin or a dollar bill human nature is fascinating a 25 cent offer beats a 15 cent offer it's one coin versus two coins a one1 offer pulls in more customers than an 85 cent offer. 85 cents involves four or more coins. A single dollar bill is easier. As the old marketing adage states, don't ask a housewife to make change for an advertiser. Marketing pioneers also learned that a smart premium idea

is also defined as one that can't be obtained anywhere else. So, you couldn't get that secret decoder ring unless you bought Ovaltine. It's also vitally important the premiums get delivered to the customers immediately. That way, the magic is enhanced. The rule? Never break the faith of a customer. delivered to the customers immediately. That way, the magic is enhanced. The rule? Never break the faith of a customer. All of these lessons, born in the 30s and 40s,

still influence the marketing world today. One of the premiums that I loved as a kid were the Sheriff Pudding hockey coins. Three sets were issued. The first was in 1960. There were 20 coins for each of the original six NHL teams, with a player's picture on every coin. Later, in 1967, the NHL expansion teams were added. The coins were also found in Sheriff Potato Chips and Salada Tea, and today they are highly prized by collectors.

Speaking of tea, Red Rose issued collectible cards from 1959 to 1975, featuring such things as songbirds, dinosaurs, and butterflies. Beginning in 1967, Red Rose also offered figurines to collectors and continues to do so to this day. But one of the master marketers when it came to premiums was, and is,

McDonald's. Hi, welcome to McDonald's. Nobody can do it like McDonald's can. Back in 1977, McDonald's asked ad man Bob Bernstein to come up with a marketing idea for kids. Thinking about it one day, he noticed that while his nine-year-old son ate his cereal, he read and re-read every word on the cereal box every morning. When he asked why he did that,

his son replied, what else is there to do? That gave Bernstein an insight. Kids want something to do while they're eating. Which led to the idea of creating a meal just for kids, which he called the Happy Meal. It sounds like a no-brainer today, but it was a radical idea back in the late 70s.

Your kids will love McDonald's Happy Meal. It's food and fun in a box. It's a hamburger or cheeseburger, regular-sized fries, regular-sized soft drink, and a McDonaldland cookie sampler. It all comes in a Happy Meal box with games, puzzles, jokes, and a prize.

A prize? It's a hamburger or cheeseburger, regular-sized fries, regular-sized soft drink, a McDonaldland cookie sampler with games, puzzles, jokes, and a prize. I said a Happy Meal. Nobody can do it like McDonald's can. The Happy Meal looked like a colorful lunch pail

with the golden arches for handles. Along with the food, the most important ingredient of all was a toy that changed nearly every week. It was an immediate hit. Today, Happy Meals account for about 10% of McDonald's revenues, or about $3 billion annually. A recent Technomic Trend report stated that 37% of kids choose McDonald's as their favorite fast food restaurant. Subway comes in at 10%, Burger King at 8%,

to give you some context. The report also points out that the Happy Meal is the largest influence on that decision, with over 80% of kids aged 6 to 9 saying they enjoyed getting a toy with their meals. Happy Meals are served at over 30,000 McDonald's restaurants in more than 100 countries now, making McDonald's the world's largest distributor of toys. Even my favorite band had a one-time brush with a box top offer,

or, shall I say, a can top offer. In England back in 1986, Heineken, working with record company EMI, offered a special Beatles promotion to their customers. When you sent in four ring pulls from specially marked Heineken beer cans,

along with two pounds and 99 pence, you received a special cassette titled Only the Beatles. It contained 12 Beatles songs with outtakes, and it was the first time a special package of Beatles songs had ever been issued for the promotion of a commercial product. It didn't last long.

It seems Heineken had forgotten one tiny detail, namely to get permission from the Beatles. Their company, Apple, claimed to know nothing about the Heineken deal, and their lawyers responded faster than you could say, Lucy in the sky, with lawsuits. As a result, the Heineken Beatles offer was halted, and the cassette, as well as the Heineken beer cans advertising the Fab Four promotion that were sent out,

are very valuable today. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized

treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. A free prize in every box was a powerful marketing strategy when it was first developed over 80 years ago. It appealed to the child in all of us, regardless of age. And it delivered the two things advertisers crave, desire and loyalty. The Happy Meal was one of McDonald's biggest successes, not just because it combined food and entertainment, but because it created an emotional connection between kids and McDonald's.

A toy inside the Cracker Jack box has distinguished that brand in the competitive candy category for decades. The lure of premiums has no age limit either. Sending in box tops attracted women for decades, and the promise of a figurine inside tea boxes has kept adults loyal to Red Rose for over 40 years. If you doubt the power of premiums,

it's interesting to note that many countries have effectively banned them, especially ones aimed at children. Box-top mail-ins seem hopelessly old-fashioned now, and in the age of instant gratification, collecting a series of anything is a quaint notion. Consumers want higher value offers today, like movie tickets or DVDs.

Now, you get a prize code and head to a website or Facebook to redeem your premium. But one thing hasn't changed. Consumers still keep their eyes on the prize when they're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Speaking of premiums, I've been a faithful listener for seven, going on eight years now.

I started listening to you on O'Reilly on Advertising in 2005, then five seasons of Age of Persuasion, and now I faithfully listen to Under the Influence. So, what's my prize for being so loyal? Under the Influence was produced at Pirate Toronto. Sound engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by

Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Series coordinator, Debbie O'Reilly. Research by Myra El-Beoumi. Download the podcasts on iTunes.

See all the visual elements from this episode at cbc.ca slash under the influence. See you next week. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it.

Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A.