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Singing for cereal
If it wasn’t for a barbershop quartet in a radio studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Christmas Eve in 1926, Wheaties cereal would have been long forgotten by now.
They were hired to sing a jingle titled “Have You Tried Wheaties?” It is believed to be radio’s first singing advertisement.
Introduced in 1924, Wheaties was the Washburn-Crosby Company’s first product other than flour. Initially known as “Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes,” the name was dropped a year later for Wheaties. (Washburn-Crosby was the predecessor company of General Mills).
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But in its first two years, the cereal failed to catch on. Some on the company’s board wanted to scrap the product and stick with processing grain. Others saw a future in diversifying with a product like Wheaties.
That’s when Donald Davis, company vice president, stepped in. He contacted the manager of the WCCO radio station – which at the time was owned by Washburn-Crosby Co. (hence the call letters) – and suggested a special radio campaign for Wheaties.
Davis wanted to prove the effectiveness of WCCO or, in his words, “find out what that radio station of ours is good for.”
He met with Henry A. Bellows, then WCCO manager, and Earl Gammons, the station’s publicity man, who wrote the jingle, which borrowed the chorus melody from the popular 1919 song “Jazz Baby.”
To perform the song, Washburn-Crosby enlisted a vocal quartet.
