General Mills Campaign Targets Boomer Nostalgia
Posted On October 5, 2011
Appeals to nostalgia are known to be effective with Baby Boomers, particularly in marketing campaigns that evoke memories of the Boomers’ “flower power” youth of the 60s and 70s. Now General Mills has launched a campaign aimed at Boomers that features Cheech and Chong, counterculture heroes, and their “magic” brownies. While Cheech and Chong appear in their familiar roles, it’s the brownies that have changed. Now, appropriate to Boomers’ age, the “magic” ingredient in the brownies is fiber.
General Mills is using the famous hippies and their association with “magic” brownies of the past to market Fiber One brand 90-calorie, high-fiber brownies to aging Boomers who are more likely be interested in the benefits of fiber than the “magic” ingredients that might have been baked into brownies back in the Age of Aquarius.
In addition to appealing to nostalgia, the campaign perfectly sums up the generational journey of the Boomers. “Because now that you are getting older, you need a new kind of magic from your brownie,” says the voiceover at the end of the mock-movie-trailer style commercial.
http://adage.com/article/adages/video-cheech-chong-back-fiber/230044/