animals crackers manifesto
How does this little box of cookies imported from England in the late 1800’s inspire new brand rethinking for a 21st century multbillion-dollar global high-technology brand? For any brand for that matter? Quite simply, because Barnum’s Animals Crackers is beloved by the “clients” who buy it, talk about it, share it, and buy it some more.
To Be Loved or not to be loved? That’s a branding question to discuss with one’s c-suite. And I think Animals Crackers can be instructive here for our global sales goals for 2010 and beyond.
See if you can imagine why these factoids about Animals Crackers are worthy of the highest-level marketing and sales brandstorming…
- Barnum’s Animals Crackers are sometimes called “Circus Crackers,” other times simply “Animals”
- Each bakery makes its own version, in limited supply, to meet the demands of customers in the immediate area
- The innovative idea of attaching a string to hang from the Christmas tree
- Originally sold in bulk or in large tins
- With each generation, there have been some changes in the number and variety of animals caged in that colorful little box
- In total, there have been 54 different animals represented by animal crackers since 1902
- There will probably always be lions and tigers, bears and elephants. But the dog and jaguar have fallen to the hyena and gorilla
- The Koala is the newest addition, voted on by consumers, beating out the penguin, walrus and cobra
- Although the circus box has gone through updates and changes over the years, it still remains true to its origin — bright, colorful and fun
- The unchanged purity of ingredients. Flour, sugar, shortening, corn flour, whey solids, salt, leaving (sodium bicarbonate), and oil-of-lemon combine to make a not-too-sweet-cracker/cookie
- By installing rotary dies, bakers actually engraved details onto each cracker, creating a much more intricate design
- A part of everyone’s childhood, written about, sung about and probably dreamed about by millions
- Just as popular today as they were at the first Christmas in 1902
- More than 40 million packages sold each year, in the U.S. and exported to 17 countries
- That string handle again: … it just seems to fit a youngster’s hand to a tee.
What kind of CMO mind grasps the counterintuitive patterns and big-picture concepts that might connect Animals Crackers to the marketing and sales challenges of a billion-dollar global brand? Call me to talk about it over some milk and a certain brand of cookies.
