Sheer Desperation=Wheat Thins “Eat This” Ad

When a creative assignment arrives, the team comes together to bash around some creative ideas until one finally rises to the top. In this instance, a small Chicago agency got the chance to make a big name for itself by coming up with a Big Idea for the popular baked cracker snack Wheat Thins.

The clever marketing strategy came to fruition after the creative director spent untold hours staring at a box of the crackers. The surprise is what he came up with after dropping a few letters from the words “Wheat Thins” to get “Eat This” and how the execution unfolded.

A marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management said the Wheat Thins campaign should resonate with consumers and translate into incremental sales.

Here’s the YouTube video so you can view the ad.

The campaign is also being promoted on the Wheat Thins Facebook page, which has more than 631,000 likes, and on Twitter. And Wheat Thins is pumping out posts and tweets that tie to the theme of the new campaign like, “Fill in the blanks! Respond within broadly acceptable social standards and you’ll probably hear from us.” appearing with an image that reads: The Best Way to Get More Wheat Thins is to go to _ _ _ Store.

Agencies can really make a splash, not only with clients, but with consumers when they come up with something really unique like the “Eat This” campaign. And, they catch the attention of the media, which can do lots of the marketing work for them. The campaign puts a definitive spin on the typical cracker advertising and marketing campaigns to help set Wheat Thins apart in a very crowded category.

The funny thing is, the Big Idea was staring the brand—and its customers—right in the face all along.

Agencies can really make a splash, not only with clients, but with consumers when they come up with something really unique like the “Eat This” campaign. The work puts a definitive spin on the typical cracker advertising and marketing campaigns to help set Wheat Thins apart in a very crowded category.

The funny thing is, the Big Idea was staring the brand—and its customers—right in the face all along.